PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - David Guillaume-Schöpfer
AU  - Katja E. Jaeger
AU  - Feng Geng
AU  - Fabrizio G. Doccula
AU  - Alex Costa
AU  - Alex A. R. Webb
AU  - Philip A. Wigge
TI  - Ribosomes act as cryosensors in plants
AID  - 10.1101/2020.12.07.414789
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.12.07.414789
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/12/07/2020.12.07.414789.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/12/07/2020.12.07.414789.full
AB  - Cold temperatures are a threat to temperate plants, and Arabidopsis thaliana has acquired an adaptive gene expression network controlled by CBF transcription factors. The CBFs are sufficient to enable plants to survive otherwise lethal subzero temperatures. Constitutive CBF expression causes delayed flowering and stunted growth, and plants have evolved the ability to restrict CBF expression to occur only in the cold. This allows plants to anticipate likely freezing events and selectively deploy cold tolerance. The mechanism by which cold stress is sensed is however unknown. Here we show that protein translation rates in plants are proportional to temperature, and reduced translation rates trigger a rise in intracellular free calcium that activates the CAMTA transcription factors, and these directly activate cold-induced gene expression.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.