Flowering roots: Insensitive Root Growth 1 contributes to photoperiod-induced root responses in Arabidopsis.

The capacity to perceive and respond to seasonal changes of day length is essential for flowering plants. Under favourable photoperiod, a mobile stimulus synthesized in leaves moves to the shoot apex and triggers the expression of genes required for the transition to flower initiation. Although transition from vegetative to reproductive state also encompasses a transcriptional response in roots, the internal signalling pathways and how root system architecture adjusts to this changing status remain elusive.
Here we show in Arabidopsis that root growth rate increases upon a transfer to flowering-inductive long days while remaining constant under short days. To elucidate genetic components of this response, we performed a meta-analysis of available root-growth and flowering-related arrays and selected genes with overlapping transcriptional profiles for further analyses. Loss of function in a member of the basic leucine zipper transcription factor gene family, hereafter named Insensitive Root Growth-1 (IRG1), was found to suppress photoperiod-response of root growth with no defect in flowering time. We show that sucrose, but neither glucose nor mannitol in the growth medium under long days, is needed to trigger this response. In addition, extending the photoperiod with non-photosynthetic far red light had no effect on root growth of irg-1 mutant, alike wild type Col-0. The expression level of IRG1 in the roots remains low during the daytime and peaks late at night, suggesting that this gene is regulated by the clock’s evening loop. Taken together, our results suggest that IRG1 may be involved in sucrose-mediated stimulation of root growth during the night phase in Arabidopsis. The functional characterisation of IRG1 is currently underway.