RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 RNA labelling in live plants reveals single cell transcriptional dynamics: application to phosphate signaling
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.04.12.439441
DO 10.1101/2021.04.12.439441
A1 Sahar Hani
A1 Laura Cuyas
A1 Pascale David
A1 David Secco
A1 James Whelan
A1 Marie-Christine Thibaud
A1 Rémy Merret
A1 Florian Mueller
A1 Nathalie Pochon
A1 Hélène Javot
A1 Orestis Faklaris
A1 Eric Maréchal
A1 Edouard Bertrand
A1 Laurent Nussaume
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/04/13/2021.04.12.439441.abstract
AB Plants are sessile organisms constantly adapting to ambient fluctuations through spatial and temporal transcriptional responses. Here, we implemented the latest generation RNA imaging system and combined it with microfluidics to visualize transcriptional regulation in living Arabidopsis plants. This enabled quantitative measurements of the transcriptional activity of single loci in single cells, real time and changing environmental conditions. Using phosphate responsive genes as model, we found that active genes displayed high transcription initiation rates (∼3s) and frequently clustered together in endoreplicated cells. We observed gene bursting and large allelic differences in single cells, revealing that at steady-state, intrinsic noise dominated extrinsic variations. Moreover, we established that transcriptional repression triggered in roots by phosphate, a crucial macronutrient limiting plant development, occurred with unexpected fast kinetics (∼minutes) and striking heterogeneity between neighboring cells. Access to single cell RNA polymerase II dynamics within live plants will benefit future studies of signaling processes.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.