If scientists can fully understand plant growth, they may be able to find a cure for cancer
In order to increase agricultural yields, it is important to understand how plants process light. Plants use light to determine when to grow and flower. Plants find light using proteins called photoreceptors. However, understanding plants has implications for areas outside of agriculture. Ullas Pedmale, assistant professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), and colleagues discovered how the proteins UBP12 and UBP13 regulate the activity of a CRY2 photoreceptor. Their findings could make evident new growth control strategies, with potential implications far beyond agriculture. There are CRY photoreceptors in both plants and humans. They are linked to a number of diseases, including diabetes, cancer and several brain disorders. CRY2 helps regulate growth in both humans and plants. Uncontrolled growth in plants reduces their viability, while causing cancer in humans. “If we understand growth,” says Pedmale, “we can cure cancer.” Manipulation of CRY2 and UBP12 and UBP13 protein levels in Arabidopsis thaliana plants affects development. The first plant from the left shows normal growth. The second plant lacks CRY2 and grew too large. The third plant lacked UBP12 and UBP13 and grew shorter. The fourth plant had high levels of UBP12 and UBP13 and the fifth had high levels of CRY2. Credit: Pedmale lab/CSHL, 2022 Plants need the right amount of CRY2 to know when to grow and flower. Pedmale and former postdoctoral fellow Louise Lindbäck discovered that manipulating UBP12 and UBP13 can change the amount of CRY2 in plants. They found that increasing UBP12 and UBP13 decreases CRY2 levels. This made the plants think there wasn’t enough light. In response, they grew longer, abnormal stems to reach further. Pedmale says: “We have a way to understand growth here—and we could manipulate growth just by manipulating two proteins. We have found a way we can actually increase flower production. You need bloom for food. If there is no flower, there is no wheat, no rice, no wheat, no corn.’ Pedmale and Lindbäck did not know exactly how UBP12 and UBP13 regulated CRY2. When the researchers looked more closely, they made a surprising discovery. In humans and other organisms, versions of UBP12 and UBP13 protect CRY photoreceptors from degradation. But in plants, the team saw the opposite. In contrast, UBP12 and UBP13 helped degrade CRY2. Lindbäck, who is currently a research and development engineer at Nordic Biomarker in Sweden, explains: “From the literature, it’s known that if you find an interaction like this, it will protect against degradation. At first, we saw the opposite and thought, “okay, maybe I did something wrong,” but then when I did it a few times, we realized, “okay, this is true.” Instead of protecting CRY2, it causes CRY2 to degrade. Pedmale hopes their discovery will help researchers and plant breeders improve crop yields. He also hopes his work will help inform cancer research. “My colleagues at CSHL are hard at work trying to understand cancer,” he says. “We’re coming at it from a different angle with plants.” The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Citation: “The deubiquitins UBP12 and UBP13 destabilize the blue light receptor CRY2 to regulate Arabidopsis growth” by Louise N. Lindbäck, Yuzhao Hu, Amanda Ackermann, Oliver Artz, and Ullas V. Pedmale, June 13, 2022, Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.05.046
