A very long chain fatty acid responsive transcription factor, MYB93, regulates lateral root development in Arabidopsis

Lateral roots (LRs) are critical to rhizosphere development in plants. Although the molecular mechanisms by which auxin regulates LR development has been studied extensively, many additional regulatory systems are thought to be involved. Based on the expression analysis of LTPG1 and 2, we found that they were specifically expressed at the developing LR primordium (LRP), and the number of LRs were reduced in these mutants. Because LTPG is a protein that transports Very Long Chain Fatty Acids (VLCFAs), we hypothesized that VLCFAs regulated LR development. We revealed that late LRP development was stunted when VLCFA levels were reduced in the synthetic mutant, kcs1-5 . In this study, we established a method to analyze the LRP development stages with high temporal resolution using a deep neural network. We identified a VLCFA responsible transcription factor, MYB93, from transcriptome analysis of kcs1-5 . Interestingly, MYB93 showed a carbon chain length-specific expression response after treatment of VLCFA. Furthermore, myb93 transcriptome analysis suggested that MYB93 regulated the expression of cell wall organization genes. Our results indicated that VLCFA is a regulator of LRP development through transcription factor-mediated regulation of gene expression.