B1L regulates lateral root development by exocytic vesicular trafficking-mediated polar auxin transport in Arabidopsis

Abstract Auxin and auxin-mediated signaling pathways involved in the regulation of lateral root development are well documented. Although exocytic vesicle trafficking plays an important role in PIN-auxin-efflux carrier recycling, and polar auxin transport during lateral root formation, however, the mechanistic details of these processes are not well understood. Here, we demonstrate an essential regulatory mechanism of B1L that interacts with the exocyst to regulate PIN-mediated polar auxin transport and lateral root initiation. B1L is highly expressed in Arabidopsis roots, and genetic and cellular analyses have revealed that B1L is mainly involved in lateral root primordia initiation. Furthermore, DR5::GUS expression analyses revealed that auxin levels were higher in lateral root primordia of the b1l mutant than in the wild-type. Exogenous auxin treatment confirmed that the lateral root phenotype correlated closely with auxin levels. Additionally, auxin transport-inhibitory treatment indicated that B1L regulates auxin efflux. Consistently, b1l mutants exhibited higher levels of auxin efflux carriers PIN1-GFP and PIN3-GFP in lateral root primordia. Moreover, B1L interacts with the exocyst and functions in recycling PIN2-GFP. Finally, the b1l-1/exo70b1-1 double-mutant exhibited a significant increase in the number of lateral roots compared to the wildtype, b1l-1, and exo70b1-1. Collectively, this study improves our understanding of the highly sophisticated processes involved in exocytic vesicular trafficking-mediated polar auxin transport and lateral root initiation in plants.