Volume 24, No 1, Jan 2014

ISSN: 1001-0602 
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018 
impact factor 17.848* 
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)

Volume 24 Issue 1, January 2014: 130-133

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

A DELLA protein complex controls the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis in plants

Nan Yu^1,*, Dexian Luo^1,*, Xiaowei Zhang^1,*, Junzhong Liu¹, Wanxiao Wang¹, Yue Jin¹, Wentao Dong¹, Jiyun Liu¹, Huan Liu¹, Weibing Yang¹, Longjun Zeng¹, Qun Li¹, Zuhua He¹, Giles E D Oldroyd² and Ertao Wang¹

¹National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China
²John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7UH, UK Correspondence: Ertao Wang(etwang@sibs.ac.cn)

lants establish beneficial symbiotic associations with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, which colonize the root cortex, building specialized structures called arbuscules that facilitate nutrient exchange. The association occurs following plant recognition of lipochitooligosaccharides (LCOs) from mycorrhizal fungi, which activates the symbiosis signaling pathway prior to mycorrhizal colonization. Here we show that SLR1/DELLA, a repressor of gibberellic acid (GA) signaling, and its interacting partner protein are required for the mycorrhizal symbiosis. GA treatment inhibits mycorrhizal colonization and leads to the degradation of DELLAs. Consistently, rice lines mutated in DELLA are unable to be colonized by mycorrhizal fungi. DELLAs are members of the GRAS family of transcription factors. We further show that rice DELLA interacts with a second GRAS protein, DIP1 (DELLA Interacting Protein 1). DIP1 is also required for mycorrhizal colonization and in turn interacts with a previously characterized mycorrhizal GRAS protein, RAM1, that has been shown to directly regulate mycorrhizal-associated gene expression. We conclude that a complex of GRAS proteins, including DELLAs, is necessary for regulation of mycorrhizal-associated gene expression and thus colonization.

10.1038/cr.2013.167

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