Emerging Field OBSIDIAN members co-authors of publication in Nature

Krzysztof Jaworski, PhD, UMK professor, and Mateusz Kwiatkowski, PhD, from the Department of Plant Physiology and Biotechnology, are co-authors of the paper ‘TIR1-produced cAMP as second messenger in transcriptional auxin signalling’, which was published in the prestigious journal Nature (Q1, IF 50.5, 200 points MNiSW). The paper was written in international collaboration with the research group of Prof. Jiri Friml at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA).

The presented achievement is a continuation of research aimed at understanding the role of adenylate cyclase (AC) of the TIR1/AFB receptor and cAMP in auxin signalling. To date, the canonical mechanism of auxin action has shown that the hormone mediates transcriptional reprogramming by interacting with TIR1/AFB receptors, which, upon auxin perception, bind to the Aux/IAA transcriptional repressors and, through ubiquitination, predestinate them for degradation, thereby releasing ARF1-3 transcription factor activity. In this article, we challenge this paradigm by showing that AC activity of the TIR1 receptor is essential, whereas auxin-induced Aux/IAA degradation is not sufficient to mediate downstream transcriptional regulation. Namely, deactivation of AC activity at the TIR1 receptor does not affect auxin-induced Aux/IAA degradation, but results in inhibition of auxin-dependent gene transcription and concomitant root, shoot, trichome growth and lateral root formation.

Their findings show that TIR1-mediated cAMP production is probably crucial for all downstream transcriptional regulation, importantly also when auxin-induced degradation of the Aux/IAA repressor occurs normally.

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