PRMT6 physically associates with nuclear factor Y to regulate photoperiodic flowering in .

UNLABELLED

The timing of floral transition is critical for reproductive success in flowering plants. In long-day (LD) plant , the floral regulator gene () is a major component of the mobile florigen. expression is rhythmically activated by CONSTANS (CO), and specifically accumulated at dusk of LDs. However, the underlying mechanism of adequate regulation of transcription in response to day-length cues to warrant flowering time still remains to be investigated. Here, we identify a homolog of human protein arginine methyltransferases 6 (HsPRMT6) in , and confirm AtPRMT6 physically interacts with three positive regulators of flowering Nuclear Factors YC3 (NF-YC3), NF-YC9, and NF-YB3. Further investigations find that and its encoding protein accumulate at dusk of LDs. PRMT6-mediated H3R2me2a modification enhances the promotion of NF-YCs on transcription in response to inductive LD signals. Moreover, AtPRMT6 and its homologues proteins AtPRMT4a and AtPRMT4b coordinately inhibit the expression of , a suppressor of . Taken together, our study reveals the role of arginine methylation in photoperiodic pathway and how the PRMT6-mediating H3R2me2a system interacts with NF-CO module to dynamically control expression and facilitate flowering time.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42994-021-00065-y.