Arabidopsis E3 Ligase HOS15 Regulates ABA and Drought Responses via DIL9 Degradation
摘要
Drought stress triggers abscisic acid (ABA) signaling in plants but underline regulatory mechanisms remains incompletely understood. Recently, HOS15, a CUL4-DDB1-based substrate receptor, was shown to regulate ABA signaling and drought stress responses by targeting the drought-induced protein DIL9 for degradation. We show a novel HOS15-DIL9 regulatory module fine-tuning ABA signaling and drought. HOS15 mediated DIL9 turnover likely modulates downstream stress genes expression. Additionally, DIL9 directly binds to the promoters of ABFs (ABF1-4) and NCED3 and activates their expression under drought stress. ABFs and NCED3 expression markedly elevated in DIL9-GFP/hos15-2 compared to DIL9-GFP plants under stress conditions, indicating that HOS15 restricts DIL9 activation of ABFs and NCED3 genes. HOS15 promotes DIL9 degradation, thereby establishing a negative feedback loop that links NCED3-depedent ABA biosynthesis coupled to ABF-mediated ABA signaling. Thus, our findings demonstrate that HOS15 attenuates DIL9 activity via proteasomal degradation, thereby fine-tuning ABA and drought responses in Arabidopsis.