Lei Deng: The Plant Cell First Author

Lei Deng, co-first author of “Tomato MED25 Regulates Fruit Ripening by Interacting with EIN3-like Transcription Factors”

Current Position:

Associate Professor, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Education:

Ph.D. in Chongqing University (CQU)

Non-scientific Interests: Running, cooking and music

Brief bio: I received my Ph.D degree at the Chongqing University and then joined Prof. Chuanyou Li’s lab at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Science to start my postdoctoral study. I have been using tomato as a model to study plant immunity and fruit quality formation.

In this project, we investigated the mechanistic function of MED25, a subunit of the plant Mediator transcriptional coactivator complex, in regulating tomato fruit ripening. We found that MED25 physically interacts with EIN3-like (EIL) transcription factors to orchestrate ethylene-mediated transcriptional reprogramming during fruit ripening. We demonstrated that MED25 forms a transcriptional module with EILs to regulate the expression of ripening-related regulatory as well as structural genes through promoter binding. We also demonstrated that the EIL–MED25 module forms both positive and negative feedback loops with its downstream regulators to maintain ethylene homeostasis during ripening.

 

姓名：邓磊

目前职位：副研究员，中国科学院遗传与发育生物学研究所

教育背景：重庆大学，博士

兴趣爱好：跑步、烹饪、音乐

个人简介: 2013年在重庆大学获得博士学位后，进入中科院遗传发育所李传友研究员课题组进行博士后研究。2016年留在遗传发育所工作。长期以番茄为模式研究植物防御病虫侵害及果实品质形成的分子机制。

在本研究中，我们揭示了转录中介体（Mediator）亚基MED25调控番茄果实成熟的分子机制。我们发现MED25通过与乙烯信号途径的核心转录因子EIL的直接物理互作，将成熟信号传递给通用转录机器RNA聚合酶II（Pol II），从而精确控制成熟相关基因的时空特异性表达。我们证实EIL–MED25转录模块结合到启动子上直接调控部分成熟结构基因的表达，同时靶向下游次级转录因子间接调控部分成熟结构基因的表达。我们还证实EIL–MED25转录模块与下游转录因子形成正负反馈回路来维持成熟过程中的乙烯内稳态。