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Review
. 2016 Jun;243(6):1339-50.
doi: 10.1007/s00425-016-2478-6. Epub 2016 Feb 22.

Strigolactone versus gibberellin signaling: reemerging concepts?

Eva-Sophie Wallner  1 , Vadir López-Salmerón  1 , Thomas Greb  2
Affiliations
Review

Strigolactone versus gibberellin signaling: reemerging concepts?

Eva-Sophie Wallner et al. Planta. 2016 Jun.

Abstract

In this review, we compare knowledge about the recently discovered strigolactone signaling pathway and the well established gibberellin signaling pathway to identify gaps of knowledge and putative research directions in strigolactone biology. Communication between and inside cells is integral for the vitality of living organisms. Hormonal signaling cascades form a large part of this communication and an understanding of both their complexity and interactive nature is only beginning to emerge. In plants, the strigolactone (SL) signaling pathway is the most recent addition to the classically acting group of hormones and, although fundamental insights have been made, knowledge about the nature and impact of SL signaling is still cursory. This narrow understanding is in spite of the fact that SLs influence a specific spectrum of processes, which includes shoot branching and root system architecture in response, partly, to environmental stimuli. This makes these hormones ideal tools for understanding the coordination of plant growth processes, mechanisms of long-distance communication and developmental plasticity. Here, we summarize current knowledge about SL signaling and employ the well-characterized gibberellin (GA) signaling pathway as a scaffold to highlight emerging features as well as gaps in our knowledge in this context. GA signaling is particularly suitable for this comparison because both signaling cascades share key features of hormone perception and of immediate downstream events. Therefore, our comparative view demonstrates the possible level of complexity and regulatory interfaces of SL signaling.

Keywords: D53/SMXL; Hormonal signaling; Long-distance communication; SCF complex.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Similarities between SL and GA perception. a Molecular structures of SL and GA are exemplified by (+)-5-Deoxystrigol and GA3, respectively. The ABC scaffold of SL is connected to ring D by an enol ether bridge (indicated in orange). b A schematic comparison between SL- and GA-signaling is shown. Unlike GID1, the α/β-hydrolase D14 preserved its catalytic activity. Bound SL is hydrolyzed through a nucleophilic attack by Ser147 (visualized in orange) at the enol ether bridge. Marvin was used for drawing, displaying and characterizing chemical structures, substructures and reactions, Marvin Beans (15.9.28.0), 2015, ChemAxon (http://www.chemaxon.com). Abbreviations, see main text
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Comparison of D53/SMXL family members. a A maximum likelihood phylogenic tree based on an amino acid sequence alignment of the Arabidopsis SMXL proteins. The scale bar indicates a branch length with 0.5 amino acid substitutions per site. The three putative sub-clades are emphasized by blue brackets. CLC Main Workbench 7.6.1 (CLC Bio Qiagen, Denmark). b Shown is the motif important for D3-dependent ubiquitination of D53 from rice identified previously (Jiang et al. ; Zhou et al. 2013). Aligned are the eight SMXL family members from Arabidopsis, the SMXL rice homolog D53 (OsD53) and the mutated d53 protein in which this motif is lost (indicated by a red bracket). Note that the RGKTGI motif is not present in members of sub-clade 2. CLC Main Workbench 7.6.1 (CLC Bio Qiagen, Denmark)
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