BRAVO self-confined expression through WOX5 in the Arabidopsis root stem-cell niche
Mercadal Melià, Josep (Universitat de Barcelona. Departament de Física de la Matèria Condensada)
Betegón Putze, Isabel (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Bosch, Nadja (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Caño Delgado, Ana I (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Ibañes, Marta (Universitat de Barcelona. Institute of Complex Systems)

Date:	2022
Abstract:	In animals and plants, stem-cell niches are local microenvironments that are tightly regulated to preserve their unique identity while communicating with adjacent cells that will give rise to specialized cell types. In the primary root of Arabidopsis thaliana, two transcription factors, BRAVO and WOX5, among others, are expressed in the stem-cell niche. Intriguingly, BRAVO, a repressor of quiescent center divisions, confines its own gene expression to the stem-cell niche, as evidenced in a bravo mutant background. Here, we propose through mathematical modeling that BRAVO confines its own expression domain to the stem-cell niche by attenuating a WOX5-dependent diffusible activator of BRAVO. This negative feedback drives WOX5 activity to be spatially restricted as well. The results show that WOX5 diffusion and sequestration by binding to BRAVO are sufficient to drive the experimentally observed confined BRAVO expression at the stem-cell niche. We propose that the attenuation of a diffusible activator can be a general mechanism acting at other stem-cell niches to spatially confine genetic activity to a small region while maintaining signaling within them and with the surrounding cells.
Grants:	Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad SEV-2015-485 0533 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CEX2019-000902-S Agencia Estatal de Investigación PGC2018-101896-B-I00 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación BES-2016-078218 Agencia Estatal de Investigación BIO2016-78955 European Commission 683163 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-1061 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2016/FI-DGR-00472 Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte FPU15/02822
Note:	Altres ajuts: CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Published in:	Development (Cambridge), Vol. 149, Issue 15 (August 2022) , art. dev200510, ISSN 1477-9129

DOI: 10.1242/dev.200510
PMID: 35899779

13 p, 3.1 MB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > CRAG (Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles