AtHDA15 attenuates COP1 via transcriptional quiescence, direct binding, and sub-compartmentalization during photomorphogenesis

Light is an essential environmental cue that determines the overall growth and development of plants. However, the molecular mechanisms underpinning the light signaling network are obscured by the epigenetic machinery where reversible acetylation and deacetylation play crucial roles in modulating light-regulated gene expression. In this paper, we demonstrate that HDA15 represses COP1, the master switch in the light signaling network, by deacetylation, protein interaction, and sub-compartmentalization. hda15 T-DNA mutant lines exhibited light hyposensitivity with significantly reduced HY5 and PIF3 transcript levels leading to long-hypocotyl phenotypes in the dark while its overexpression exhibited elevated HY5 transcripts and short hypocotyl phenotypes. In vivo and in vitro binding assays further show that HDA15 directly interacts with COP1 inside the nucleus modulating COP1’s repressive activities. Crossing hda15-t27 with cop1-4 mutants resulted in short-hypocotyl and dwarfed phenotypes, reminiscent of cop1-4 mutants suggesting COP1 is epistatic to HDA15. Although light signals the nucleocytoplasmic shuttling of HDA15, the presence of COP1 triggers its nuclear localization. A working model is presented elucidating the concerted interplay between HDA15 and COP1 under light and dark conditions.