Brassinosteroid, gibberellin, and phytochrome impinge on a common transcription module in Arabidopsis

Abstract

Brassinosteroid (BR) and gibberellin (GA) promote many similar developmental responses in plants; but their relationship remains unclear. Here we show that BR and GA act interdependently through a direct interaction between the BR-activated BZR1 and GA-inactivated DELLA transcription regulators. GA promotion of cell elongation required BR signaling, whereas BR or active BZR1 can suppresssed the GA-deficient dwarf phenotype. DELLAs directly interacted with BZR1 and inhibited BZR1-DNA binding both in vitro and in vivo. Genome-wide analysis defined a BZR1-dependent GA-regulated transcriptome, which is enriched with light-regulated genes and genes involved in cell wall synthesis and photosynthesis/chloroplast. GA promotion of hypocotyl elongation requires both BZR1 and the phytochrome interacting factors (PIFs), as well as their common downstream targets PREs. The results demonstrate that GA releases DELLA-mediated inhibition of BZR1, and that the DELLA-BZR1-PIF4 interaction defines a core transcription module that mediates coordinated growth regulation by GA, BR and light signals.