Tian li Li: The Plant Cell First Author

Tian li Li, co-first author of “BPL3 binds the long noncoding RNA nalncFL7 to suppress FORKED-LIKE7 and modulate HAI1-mediated MPK3/6 dephosphorylation in plant immunity”

Current Position: Ph.D. candidate at College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China.

Education: Expected to graduate in the Summer of 2024 at Nanjing Agricultural University.

Non-scientific Interests: Music

Brief bio: I joined Prof. Daolong Dou’s group at NJAU since 2018 to pursue my Ph.D. My research is mainly focused on the identification and mechanism study of plant resistance genes in Phytophthora-host plants interactions. Previous work identified a class of RNA-binding proteins named BPL family. Our findings shows that BPL (BPA1-Like Proteins) family negatively regulates plant immunity, and BPL3 plays the main role, while other proteins have redundant functions. In this study, we confirm that BPL3 is a negative regulator of plant immunity complementing bpl3 mutants and by overexpressing BPL3. Analysis of RNA-seq data revealed that BPL3 targets a pair of natural antisense strands, FL7 (Forked-like 7) and nalncFL7 (cis-natural antisense lncRNA of FL7). BPL3 binds and stabilizes nalncFL7, which in turn leads to a reduction of FL7 at the RNA level. Genetic and biochemical experiments showed that FL7 could directly bind and inhibit the phosphatase activity of HAI1. HAI1 is a PP2C member that dephosphorylates MAPK (Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase), thereby mediating plant susceptibility. We found BPL3 and FL7 is conserved in land plants while nalncFL7 is at least conserved in Brassicaceae, which indicated that BPL3-nalncFL7-FL7 cascade may arise after segregation of Brassicaceae species. Based on the above results, we found a novel and conserved cascade of BPL3-nalncFL7-FL7-HAI1 that regulates plant immunity, and analyzed the mechanism of BPL3 negatively regulating plant immunity.

中文版

姓名：李田丽

目前职位：在读博士

教育背景：南京农业大学，在读博士

兴趣爱好：音乐

个人简历：我从2018年秋进入南京农业大学植物保护学院攻读硕士学位，师从窦道龙教授，于2020年硕博连读开始博士生涯。我的研究课题是利用疫霉与植物互作进行植物抗病基因的鉴定和机制研究。实验室的前期工作鉴定到一类RNA结合蛋白，并命名为BPL蛋白家族。研究发现BPL蛋白家族负调控植物免疫，且BPL3作为主效作用，其它蛋白功能冗余。在本研究中，我们通过回补实验明确BPL3是植物免疫的负调控因子，并进一步探索了BPL3负调控植物免疫的机制。通过分析RNA-seq数据发现BPL3靶向一对天然的反义链——FL7和nalncFL7。BPL3能够结合并稳定nalncFL7，进而导致FL7在RNA水平上的减少。遗传和生化实验表明FL7可以直接结合并抑制HAI1的磷酸酶活性。HAI1是PP2C成员，可以去磷酸化MAPK，从而介导植物的感病性。BPL3-nalncFL7-FL7级联在十字花科植物中保守。综合以上结果，我们发现一个新的、保守的调控植物免疫的模块——BPL3-nalncFL7-FL7-HAI1，解析了BPL3负调控植物免疫的机制。