Functional relationship of GUN1 and FUG1 in plastid proteostasis

GUN1 integrates retrograde signals in the chloroplast but the underlying mechanism is elusive. FUG1, a chloroplast translation initiation factor, and GUN1 are co-expressed at the transcript level, and FUG1 co-immunoprecipitates with GUN1. We used mutants of GUN1 (gun1-103) and FUG1 (fug1-3) to analyse their functional relationship at the physiological and systems-wide level, the latter including transcriptome and proteome analyses. Absence of GUN1 aggravates the effects of decreased FUG1 levels on chloroplast protein translation, resulting in transient additive phenotypes with respect to photosynthesis, leaf coloration, growth and cold acclimation. Variegation of the var2 mutant is enhanced by gun1-103 in terms of increasing the fraction of white sectors, in contrast to fug1-3 that acts as suppressor. The transcriptomes of fug1-3 and gun1-103 are very similar, but absence of GUN1 alone has almost no effects on protein levels, whereas chloroplast protein accumulation is markedly decreased in fug1-3. In gun1 fug1 double mutants, effects on transcriptomes and particularly proteomes are enhanced. Our results show that GUN1 function becomes critical when chloroplast proteostasis is perturbed by decreased translation (fug1) or degradation (var2) of chloroplast proteins. The functions of FUG1 and GUN1 appear to be related, corroborating the view that GUN1 operates in chloroplast proteostasis. Overall design: Examination of differential gene expression in the Arabdidopsis thaliana gun1, fug1 and gun1 fug1 mutants compared to wild type in three replicates

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Marino G, Naranjo B, Wang J, Penzler JF, Kleine T, Leister D