TRANSPARENT TESTA8 Inhibits Seed Fatty Acid Accumulation by Targeting Several Seed Development Regulators in Arabidopsis

Fatty acids (FAs) and FA-derived complex lipids play important roles in plant growth and vegetative development and are a class of prominent metabolites stored in mature seeds. The factors and regulatory networks that control FA accumulation in plant seeds remain largely unknown. The role of TRANSPARENT TESTA8 (TT8) in the regulation of flavonoid biosynthesis and the formation of seed coat color is extensively studied; however, its function in affecting seed FA biosynthesis is poorly understood. In this article, we show that Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) TT8 acts maternally to affect seed FA biosynthesis and inhibits seed FA accumulation by down-regulating a group of genes either critical to embryonic development or important in the FA biosynthesis pathway. Moreover, the tt8 mutation resulted in reduced deposition of protein in seeds during maturation. Posttranslational activation of a TT8-GLUCOCORTICOID RECEPTOR fusion protein and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays demonstrated that TT8 represses the activities of LEAFY COTYLEDON1, LEAFY COTYLEDON2, and FUSCA3, the critical transcriptional factors important for seed development, as well as CYTIDINEDIPHOSPHATE DIACYLGLYCEROL SYNTHASE2, which mediates glycerolipid biosynthesis. These results help us to understand the entire function of TT8 and increase our knowledge of the complicated networks regulating the formation of FA-derived complex lipids in plant seeds.