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EMBO reports 8, 9, 864–870 (2007)
doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7401043
AOP Published online: 3 August 2007
The Arabidopsis TOR kinase links plant growth, yield, stress resistance and mRNA translation
Dorothée Deprost1*, Lei Yao2, 3*, Rodnay Sormani3, Manon Moreau1, Guillaume Leterreux1, Maryse Nicolaï3, Magali Bedu1, Christophe Robaglia3 & Christian Meyer1
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1 Unité de Nutrition Azotée des Plantes, Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin, INRA Versailles, Versailles 78000, France
2 Agro-Biotechnology Research Center, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forest Sciences, PO Box 2449, Beijing 100097, China
3 Laboratoire de Génétique et Biophysique des Plantes, CNRS-CEA-Université de la Méditerranée Faculté des Sciences de Luminy, 163 Avenue de Luminy, Marseille 13009, France
To whom correspondence should be addressed
Christian Meyer Tel: +33 1 30 83 30 67; Fax: +33 1 30 83 30 96; E-mail: meyer@versailles.inra.fr
* These authors contributed equally to this work
Received 27 March 2007; Accepted 4 July 2007; Published online 3 August 2007.
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Abstract
Plants, unlike animals, have plastic organ growth that is largely dependent on environmental information. However, so far, little is known about how this information is perceived and transduced into coherent growth and developmental decisions. Here, we report that the growth of Arabidopsis is positively correlated with the level of expression of the TARGET OF RAPAMYCIN (TOR) kinase. Diminished or augmented expression of the AtTOR gene results in a dose-dependent decrease or increase, respectively, in organ and cell size, seed production and resistance to osmotic stress. Strong downregulation of AtTOR expression by inducible RNA interference also leads to a post-germinative halt in growth and development, which phenocopies the action of the plant hormone abscisic acid, to an early senescence and to a reduction in the amount of translated messenger RNA. Thus, we propose that the AtTOR kinase is one of the contributors to the link between environmental cues and growth processes in plants.
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