TY - JOUR T1 - Structural insights into DNA sequence recognition by <em>Arabidopsis</em> ETHYLENE RESPONSE FACTOR 96 JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/302299 SP - 302299 AU - Chun-Yen Chen AU - Pei-Hsuan Lin AU - Kun-Hung Chen AU - Yi-Sheng Cheng Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/04/16/302299.abstract N2 - The phytohormone ethylene is widely involved in many developmental processes and is a crucial regulator of defense responses against biotic and abiotic stresses in plants. Ethylene-responsive element binding protein (EREBP), a member of the APETALA2/ethylene response factor (AP2/ERF) superfamily, is a transcription factor that regulates stress-responsive genes by recognizing a specific cis-acting element of target DNA. A previous study showed only the NMR structure of the AP2/ERF domain of AtERF100 in complex with a GCC box DNA motif. In this report, we determined the crystal structure of AtERF96 in complex with a GCC box at atomic resolution. We analyzed the binding residues of the conserved AP2/ERF domain in the DNA recognition sequence. In addition to the AP2/ERF domain, an N-terminal α-helix of AtERF96 participates in DNA interaction in the flanking region. We also demonstrated the structure of AtERF96 EDLL motif, a unique conserved motif in the group IX of AP2/ERF family, is critical for the transactivation of defense-related genes. Our study establishes the structural basis of the AtERF96 transcription factor in complex with the GCC box, as well as the DNA binding mechanisms of the N-terminal α-helix and AP2/ERF domain. ER -