Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40169950›Full record

ArticleBMC plant biology2025

Medicago Mting1 Mting2 double knockout mutants are extremely dwarfed and never flower implicating essential MtING functions in growth and flowering.

Matthew Mayo-Smith, Axel Poulet, Lulu Zhang, Yongyan Peng, David Goldstone, Joanna Putterill

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Article in BMC plant biology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

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1citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

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1 citing paper in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Matthew Mayo-SmithSchool of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Auckland, Auckland Mail Centre, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand.
Axel PouletDepartment of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Lulu ZhangSchool of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Auckland, Auckland Mail Centre, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand.
Yongyan PengThe New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited (Plant & Food Research) Mt Albert, Auckland Mail Centre, Private Bag 92169, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand.
David GoldstoneSchool of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Auckland, Auckland Mail Centre, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand.
Joanna PutterillSchool of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Auckland, Auckland Mail Centre, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand. j.putterill@auckland.ac.nz.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundOptimal flowering time is critical to agricultural productivity. Despite this, flowering regulation in the Fabaceae (legume) family is not fully understood. For example, FLC and CO control Arabidopsis flowering, but do not regulate flowering in the temperate legume Medicago. Little is known about the genetic roles of the two plant ING genes. They encode proteins with conserved ING and PHD finger domains predicted to function as epigenetic readers. Previously, using CRISPR-Cas9 knock outs, we reported that Medicago MtING2 promotes flowering and growth. However, surprisingly, Mting2 PHD finger mutants flowered similarly to wild type. Additionally, MtING1 did not regulate flowering because Mting1 mutants flowered like wild type.

methodsTo further dissect the combined genetic function of MtING1 and MtING2 and their PHD fingers, we cross-pollinated Mting1 and Mting2 single mutants to create two double mutants: The Mting1-7 Mting2-2 double knockout mutant and the Mting1-1 Mting2-11 double PHD finger mutant. Mutant phenotypes were assessed in floral-inductive conditions. We used fluorescence confocal microscopy and in vitro protein biophysical analysis to investigate the subcellular localization and oligomerization of the proteins. We carried out gene expression analysis by RNA-seq and RT-qPCR to determine how the two genes affect transcript accumulation to influence growth and flowering.

resultsThe Mting double knockout mutants displayed a striking, non-flowering, highly dwarfed phenotype indicating overlapping and complementary functions. Conversely Mting double PHD finger mutants showed only mild dwarfing and weak delays to flowering, indicating that the PHD fingers did not have a major impact on MtING function. MtING proteins localised to the nucleus, consistent with their predicted roles as histone readers, but did not interact in solution. Large changes to gene expression were seen in the Mting2-2 single mutant and the double knockout mutant, with key flowering genes downregulated and predicted floral repressors elevated. Furthermore, the MtINGs promoted the expression of Medicago homologs of target genes of the Arabidopsis NuA4 HAT complex.

conclusionsOur findings demonstrate the key combined function the MtING genes play in regulation of global gene expression, flowering time and wider development and implicate an important role in epigenetic regulation via HAT complexes.

Indexed as

FlowersMedicagoPlant ProteinsGene Expression Regulation, PlantGene Knockout TechniquesMutationPhenotypePlant ProteinsArabidopsisFlowering timeING domainINHIBITOR OF GROWTHMedicagoMtING1MtING2NuA4 HATPHD finger

Identifiers

PMID40169950
PMCPMC11960017

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.