PICKLE is a CHD3 chromatin-remodeling factor that regulates the transition from embryonic to vegetative development in Arabidopsis

PICKLE is a CHD3 chromatin-remodeling factor that regulates the transition from embryonic to vegetative development in Arabidopsis

^*Department of Biochemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1153; and ^‡Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Plant Biology, 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305

Contributed by Christopher R. Somerville

Abstract

The life cycle of angiosperms is punctuated by a dormant phase that separates embryonic and postembryonic development of the sporophyte. In the pickle (pkl) mutant of Arabidopsis, embryonic traits are expressed after germination. The penetrance of the pkl phenotype is strongly enhanced by inhibitors of gibberellin biosynthesis. Map-based cloning of the PKL locus revealed that it encodes a CHD3 protein. CHD3 proteins have been implicated as chromatin-remodeling factors involved in repression of transcription. PKL is necessary for repression of LEC1, a gene implicated as a critical activator of embryo development. We propose that PKL is a component of a gibberellin-modulated developmental switch that functions during germination to prevent reexpression of the embryonic developmental state.

Footnotes

↵ † To whom reprint requests should be addressed. E-mail: ogas{at}biochem.purdue.edu.
Data deposition: The sequence reported in this paper has been deposited in the GenBank database (accession no. AF185577).
Abbreviations:

GA,

gibberellin;

SSLP,

simple sequence length polymorphisms;

AFLP,

amplified fragment length polymorphisms;

BAC,

bacterial artificial chromosome;

YAC,

yeast artificial chromosome;

kb,

kilobase;

RT-PCR,

reverse transcription–PCR