Abstract
Chloroplast biogenesis and development are coordinated by both endogenous factors and environmental cues. The interplay between jasmonic acid (JA) and temperature in regulating chloroplast development remains poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that methyl jasmonate (MeJA) and warm temperature (28 °C) treatments additively impair chlorophyll accumulation and chloroplast development in Arabidopsis thaliana cotyledons. We found that the thermosensor phytochrome B (phyB) suppresses, whereas the JA receptor CORONATINE INSENSITIVE 1 (COI1) promotes, MeJA- and warm temperature-mediated chloroplast development. Moreover, phyB directly interacts with JASMONATE ZIM-DOMAIN 1 (JAZ1) and JAZ3, preventing their JA-induced degradation, and warm temperature attenuates this interaction. Strikingly, we reveal that transcription factors ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL 5 (HY5) and MYC2 oppositely regulate cotyledon chloroplast development in response to MeJA and warm temperature by directly and differentially modulating downstream transcriptional networks. Our study establishes a molecular framework in which phyB integrates JA and warm temperature signaling through the HY5-MYCs transcriptional regulatory network to fine-tune chloroplast development, highlighting a plant strategy for ecological adaptation.
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Data availability
All data generated or analyzed in this study are available in the main text and the Supplementary Information. Sequence data from this article can be found in the GenBank/EMBL data libraries under the following accession numbers: COI1 (AT2G39940), phyB (AT2G18790), JAZ1 (AT1G19180), JAZ3 (AT3G17860), HY5 (AT5G11260), MYC2 (AT1G32640), MYC3 (AT5G46760), MYC4 (AT4G17880), MES16 (AT4G16690), RAP2.6 (AT1G43160), RAP2.6 L (AT5G13330), SAG21 (AT4G02380), SAG20 (AT3G10985), SOC1 (AT2G45660), NYC1 (AT4G13250), SRG1 (AT1G17020), WAG2 (AT3G14370), CRF2 (AT4G23750), NCED3 (AT3G14440), COR15B (AT2G42530), MYB47 (AT1G18710), ACBP3 (AT4G24230), HSP101 (AT1G74310), LTI65 (AT5G52300), LTI78 (AT5G52310), GLK1 (AT2G20570), GLK2 (AT5G44190), ACTIN7 (AT5G09810), and UBQ1 (AT3G52590). All the unprocessed data, gels, and blots were provided in the Source Data file. Source data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. Daoxin Xie (Tsinghua University) for providing coi1-8 seeds, Dr. Chuanyou Li (Shandong Agricultural University) for providing 35S:MYC2-Myc seeds, and Dr. Lei Wang (Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for providing myc2-2 and myc2/3/4 seeds. This work was supported by grants from the Key Research and Development Program of Zhejiang Province (2024SSYS0100 to R.L.), National Key Research and Development Program of China (2024YFA1306702 to J.H.), National Natural Science Foundation of China (U25A20633 to R.L., 32270262 to J.H.), and Project of Stable Support for Youth Teams in Basic Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (YSBR-119 to J.H.).
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P.Q. performed most of the experiments, analyzed data, and wrote the manuscript; J.H. generated plant materials, analyzed data, discussed the project, and wrote the manuscript; N.G. and Y.Y. conducted part of experiments and material preparation; R.L. conceived and supervised the study, analyzed data, and revised the paper.
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Qi, P., Huai, J., Gao, N. et al. Phytochrome B integrates jasmonic acid and warm temperature signaling pathways to regulate cotyledon chloroplast development. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70131-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70131-w
