Plants perceive light signals through photoreceptors such as CRY1 to regulate growth and development. It is well-known that Arabidopsis CRY1 is a nucleocytoplasmic protein that mediates light inhibition of hypocotyl elongation in the nucleus, but the mechanisms by which CRY1 regulates root growth and functions in the cytoplasm remain poorly understood. Here, we identified eIF3G1, a subunit of the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 3 (eIF3) complex, as a CRY1-interacting protein associated with light-regulated root development. Under blue light, eif3g1 mutants showed longer primary roots, whereas eIF3G1 overexpression reduced root elongation, accompanied by corresponding changes in root apical meristem size. Differential irradiation experiments indicated that shoot illumination is required for eIF3G1-dependent root phenotypes. Transcriptome analysis revealed changes in translation-related and light-responsive genes in response to eIF3G1 perturbation. Comparison with the cry1 transcriptome revealed overlapping differentially expressed genes, including BIC1 and BIC2, and the bic1 bic2 double mutant showed reduced root elongation. Together, these findings identify eIF3G1 as a CRY1-interacting factor that contributes to the shoot-dependent regulation of root growth under blue light, suggesting that eIF3G1 may be associated with the CRY1-dependent shoot-to-root regulation of root growth.
Chen et al. (Fri,) studied this question.