THE LINK GENE FAMILY: AT THE CROSSROADS OF LIGHT SIGNALING AND THE CIRCADIAN CLOCK

ROMANOWSKI, ANDRÉS; CASAL, JOAQUÍN; YANOVSKY, MARCELO J.; HERNANDO, CARLOS E.; GARCÍA HOURQUET, MARIANO; MATÍAS RUGNONE; DE LEONE, MARÍA JOSÉ; CARENO, DANIEL; MORA GARCIA, SANTIAGO

Congreso; XV Latin American Symposiun on Chronobiology; 2019

Latin American Symposiun on Chronobiology

Light signaling pathways interact with thecircadian clock to help organisms synchronize physiological and developmentalprocesses to periodic environmental cycles. The plant photoreceptors responsiblefor clock resetting have been characterized, but signaling components that linkthe photoreceptors to the clock remain to be identified. In a previous work wereported a novel family of night light?inducible and clock-regulated genes (LNKs)that play a key role linking light regulation of gene expression to the controlof daily and seasonal rhythms in Arabidopsisthaliana. Particularly, the homologous genes LNK1 and LNK2 were shownto control circadian rhythms, photomorphogenic responses, and photoperiodicdependent flowering. In the present work, we analyze the role of the whole LNKfamily, LNK1-LNK4, in these processes. We found that LNK3 and LNK4,individually as well as together, didn?t affect circadian rhythms,photomorphogenic responses, and photoperiodic dependent flowering. Nevertheless,depletion of LNK3 and LNK4, or both, in a lnk1;lnk2mutant background gave rise to perturbations in some of the above mentionedphenotypes. This evidence suggests a complex interaction network among the LNKfamily members in the linkage between light signaling and the circadian clock.