GSE174416
The VIL gene CRAWLING ELEPHANT controls plant maturation and differentiation in tomato via polycomb silencing
VERNALIZATION INSENSITIVE 3-LIKE (VIL) proteins are PHD-finger proteins that recruit the repressor complex Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) to the promoters of flowering repressors to promote flowering. Here, we show that the tomato VIL gene CRAWLING ELEPHANT (CREL) promotes differentiation throughout plant development and affects the trimethylation of Histone H3 on lysine 27 (H3K27me3) at a subset of PRC2 targets across the genome. We identified the crel mutant in a screen for suppressors of the simple-leaf phenotype of entire (e), a mutant in the AUX/IAA gene ENTIRE/SlIAA9, which is involved in compound-leaf development in tomato. crel mutants have increased leaf complexity, and suppress the ectopic blade growth of e mutants. In addition, crel mutants are late flowering, and have delayed and aberrant stem, root and flower development. Consistent with a role for CREL in recruiting PRC2, the H3K27me3 modification is altered at a subset of PRC2 targets throughout the genome in crel mutants. Our results uncover a wide role for CREL in plant and organ differentiation in tomato and suggest that CREL is required for targeting PRC2 activity, and thus silencing, to a specific subset of polycomb targets. Overall design: ChIP-seq analysis of H3K27me3 and RNA-seq analysis in wild-type and the crel mutant of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum)