Data from: WSL5, a pentatricopeptide repeat protein, is essential for chloroplast biogenesis in rice under cold stress

Chloroplasts play an essential role in plant growth and development, and
cold has a great effect on chloroplast development. Although many genes or
regulators involved in chloroplast biogenesis and development have been
isolated and characterized, many components affecting chloroplast
biogenesis in the cold conditions have not yet been
discovered.identification of novel components associated with cold is
still lacking. In this study, we reported the functional characterization
of white stripe leaf 5 (wsl5) mutant in rice. The mutant developed
white-striped leaves during early leaf development and was albinic when
planted under cold stress. Genetic and molecular analysis revealed that
WSL5 encodes a novel chloroplast-targeted pentatricopeptide repeat
protein. RNA-seq analysis showed that expression of nuclear-encoded
photosynthetic genes in the mutant was significantly repressed, and
expression of many chloroplast-encoded genes was also significantly
changed. Notably, the WSL5 mutation caused defects in editing of rpl2 and
atpA, and in splicing of rpl2 and rps12. Chloroplast ribosome biogenesis
was impaired under cold stress. We propose that WSL5 is required for
normal chloroplast development to maintaining the retrograde signaling
from the plastids to the nucleus in rice under cold stress.

叶绿体在植物生长发育过程中发挥至关重要的作用，而低温对叶绿体发育具有显著影响。尽管诸多参与叶绿体生物发生与发育的基因或调控因子已被分离并完成功能鉴定，但低温条件下影响叶绿体生物发生的众多组分仍有待发掘，与低温胁迫应答相关的新型组分的鉴定工作仍存在不足。本研究对水稻白条纹叶5（white stripe leaf 5，wsl5）突变体开展了功能表征。该突变体在叶片发育早期呈现白条纹表型，在低温胁迫下种植时会表现出白化症状。遗传与分子分析结果表明，WSL5编码一种新型的叶绿体靶向五肽重复蛋白（pentatricopeptide repeat, PPR）。RNA测序（RNA-seq）分析显示，突变体中核编码的光合基因表达显著下调，诸多叶绿体编码基因的表达亦发生显著改变。值得注意的是，WSL5突变导致rpl2和atpA的编辑缺陷，以及rpl2与rps12的剪接异常。低温胁迫下，叶绿体核糖体生物发生过程受到损伤。本研究提出，在低温胁迫下，WSL5对于水稻维持质体向细胞核的逆行信号通路以保障正常叶绿体发育是必需的。