Dr. Xin-Jian He discovered two novel NAC transcription factors involved in flowering time regulation in Arabidopsis

On Jan. 10, 2015, Dr. Xin-Jian He's lab published an article titled"Two novel NAC transcription factors regulate gene expression and flowering time by associating with the histone demethylase JMJ14". This paper reports that two previously uncharacterized NAC transcription factors associate with the JmjC-type histone demethylase JMJ14 and are involved in transcriptional repression and flowering time regulation in Arabidopsis.

The histone  demethylase JMJ14 catalyzes histone demethylation at lysine 4 of histone 3 and  is involved in transcriptional repression and flowering time control in Arabidopsis. Here we report that JMJ14 is  physically associated with two previously uncharacterized NAC transcription factors, NAC050 and NAC052. The NAC050/052-RNAi plants and the CRISPR-CAS9-mediated nac050/052 double mutant plants show an early flowering phenotype, which is similar to the  phenotype of jmj14, suggesting a functional association between JMJ14 and NAC050/052. RNA-seq data indicated  that hundreds of common target genes are co-regulated by JMJ14 and NAC50/052. Our  ChIP analysis demonstrated that JMJ14 and NAC050 directly bind to co-upregulated  genes shared in jmj14 and NAC050/052-RNAi, thereby facilitating  H3K4 demethylation and transcriptional repression. The NAC050/052 recognition DNA cis-element was identified by an electrophoretic mobility shift assay at  the promoters of its target genes. Together, our study identifies two novel NAC  transcription repressors and demonstrates that they are involved in  transcriptional repression and flowering time control by associating with the histone demethylase JMJ14.

Yong-Qiang Ning, a  PhD student from the He lab is the first author of the paper. Dr. Xin-Jian He  from National Institute of Biological Sciences is the corresponding  author. The study was supported by the  973 project of Chinese Ministry of Science and Beijing Municipal Government.

http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/01/08/nar.gku1382.ful