Novel crosstalks between circadian clock and jasmonic acid pathway finely coordinate the tradeoff among plant growth, senescence and defense

Abstract

Circadian clock not only functions as a cellular time-keeping mechanism, but also acts as a master regulator to coordinate the tradeoff between plant growth and defense in higher plants by timing a few kinds of phytohormone biosynthesis and signaling, including jasmonic acid (JA). Notably, circadian clock and JA pathway have recently been shown to intertwine with each other to ensure and optimize the plant fitness in an ever-changing environment. It has clearly demonstrated that there are multiple crosstalk pathways between circadian clock and JA at both transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. In this scenario, circadian clock temporally modulates JA-mediated plant development events, herbivory resistance and susceptibility to pathogen. By contrast, the JA signaling regulates clock activity in a feedback manner. In this review, we summarized the cross networks between circadian clock and JA pathway at both transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. We proposed that the novel crosstalks between circadian clock and JA pathway not only benefit for the understanding the JA-associated circadian outputs including leaf senescence, biotic, and abiotic defenses, but also put timing as a new key factor to investigate JA pathway in the future.