A complement of ten essential and pleiotropic arabidopsis COP/DET/FUS genes is necessary for repression of photomorphogenesis in darkness

Abstract

Two genetic screens, one for mutations resulting in photomorphogenic development in darkness and the other for mutants with fusca phenotype, have thus far identified six pleiotropic Arabidopsis COP/DET/FUS genes. Here, we characterized representative mutants that define four additional pleiotropic photomorphogenic loci and a null mutant allele of the previously defined DETI locus. Dark-grown seedlings homozygous for these recessive mutations exhibit short hypocotyls and expanded cotyledons and are lethal before reaching reproductive development. Dark-grown mutant seedlings also display characteristic photomorphogenic cellular differentiation and elevated expression of light-inducible genes. In addition, analyses of plastids from dark-grown mutants reveal partial chloroplast differentiation and absence of etioplast development. Root vascular bundle cells of light-grown mutant seedlings develop chloroplasts, suggesting that these FUS gene products are important for suppression of chloroplast differentiation in light-grown roots. Double-mutant analyses indicate that these pleiotropic cop/det/fus mutations are epistatic to mutations in phytochromes, a blue-light photoreceptor, and a downstream regulatory component, HY5. Therefore, there is a complement of at least 10 essential and pleiotropic Arabidopsis genes that are necessary for repression of photomorphogenic development.