SlZF3 regulates tomato plant height by directly repressing SlGA20ox4 in the gibberellic acid biosynthesis pathway

Abstract

Plant height is an important target trait for crop genetic improvement. Our previous work has identified a salt-tolerant C2H2 zinc finger, SlZF3, and its overexpression lines also showed a semi-dwarf phenotype, but the molecular mechanism remains to be elucidated. Here, we characterized the dwarf phenotype in detail. The dwarfism is caused by a decrease in stem internode cell elongation and deficiency of bioactive gibberellic acids (GAs), and can be rescued by exogenous GA₃ treatment. Gene expression assays detected reduced expression of genes in the GA biosynthesis pathway of the overexpression lines, including SlGA20ox4. Several protein–DNA interaction methods confirmed that SlZF3 can directly bind to the SlGA20ox4 promoter and inhibit its expression, and the interaction can also occur for SlKS and SlKO. Overexpression of SlGA20ox4 in the SlZF3-overexpressing line can recover the dwarf phenotype. Therefore, SlZF3 regulates plant height by directly repressing genes in the tomato GA biosynthesis pathway.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31972416, U1906205, U21A20230), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFE0100900, 2018YFD1000800), the earmarked fund for CARS (CARS-23-A13), the Foundation for Young Talents of Henan Agricultural University (30500728), and the Key Scientific Research Project of the Higher Education Institutions of Henan Province (23A210008).

Author contributions

B.O., J.L., and Y.Li. planned and designed the research; J.L., Y.Li, YunfeiT., and Z.C. performed experiments and analyzed data; J.C., Y.P., J.J., R.C., and Yaping T. conducted some fieldwork; H.Y. and C.S. provided the bioinformatic analysis service; B.O. and J.L. wrote the manuscript; B.O., Y.Li, Y.Lu, and Z.Y. revised the manuscript.

Data availability

All relevant data can be found within the manuscript and its supporting materials. The sequence data were downloaded from the Sol Genomics Network (https://www.sgn.cornell.edu/) https://solgenomics.net/ database with the following accession numbers: SlZF3, Solyc06g075780; SlGA20ox1, Solyc03g006880; SlGA20ox2, Solyc06g035530; SlGA20ox3, Solyc11g072310; SlGA20ox4, Solyc01g093980; SlKS, Solyc07g066670; SlKO, Solyc04g083160; SlKAO, Solyc01g080900; Actin, Solyc11g005330; GA3ox1, Solyc06g066820; GA3ox2, Solyc03g119910.

Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

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