NUCLEAR FACTOR Y,Subunit C (NF-YC) Transcription Factors Are Positive Regulators of Photomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana

Recent reports suggest that nf-y transcription factors are positive regulators of skotomorphogenesis in arabidopsis thaliana. three nf-yc genes (nf-yc3,nf-yc4,and nf-yc9) are known to have overlapping functions in photoperiod dependent flowering and previous studies demonstrated that they interact with basic leucine zipper (bzip) transcription factors. this included elongated hypocotyl 5 (hy5),which has well-demonstrated roles in photomorphogenesis. similar to hy5 mutants,we report that nf-yc3 nf-yc4 nf-yc9 triple mutants failed to inhibit hypocotyl elongation in all tested light wavelengths. surprisingly,nf-yc3 nf-yc4 nf-yc9 hy5 mutants had synergistic defects in light perception,suggesting that nf-ys represent a parallel light signaling pathway. as with other photomorphogenic transcription factors,nf-yc3 nf-yc4 nf-yc9 triple mutants also partially suppressed the short hypocotyl and dwarf rosette phenotypes of constitutive photomorphogenic 1 (cop1) mutants. thus,our data strongly suggest that nf-y transcription factors have important roles as positive regulators of photomorphogenesis,and in conjunction with other recent reports,implies that the nf-y are multifaceted regulators of early seedling development. © 2016 myers et al.