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Highlights • HTB encodes a SUMO protease required for fruit shape in Capsella • Anisotropic cell growth is suppressed in the fruit valves of the htb mutant • HTB stabilises CrIND through deSUMOylation to facilitate local auxin biosynthesis

Evolution of gene-regulatory sequences is considered the primary driver of morphological variation. In animals, the diversity of body plans between distantly-related phyla is due to the differential expression patterns of conserved “toolkit” genes. In plants, variation in expression domains similarly underlie most of the reported diversity of organ shape both in natural evolution and in the domestication of crops. The heart-shaped fruit from members of the Capsella genus is a morphological novelty that has evolved after Capsella diverged from Arabidopsis ~8M years ago. Comparative studies of fruit growth in Capsella and Arabidopsis revealed that the difference in shape is caused by local control of anisotropic growth. Here we show that sequence variation in regulatory domains of the fruit-tissue identity gene, INDEHISCENT (IND), is responsible for expansion of its expression domain in the heart-shaped fruits from Capsella rubella. We demonstrate that expression of this CrIND gene in the apical part of the valves in Capsella contributes to the heart-shaped appearance. Whilst studies on morphological diversity have revealed the importance of cis-regulatory sequence evolution, few examples exist where the downstream effects of such variation have been characterised in detail. We describe here how CrIND exerts its function on Capsella fruit shape by binding sequence elements of auxin biosynthesis genes to activate their expression and ensure auxin accumulation into highly localised maxima in the fruit valves. Hence, our data provides a direct link between changes in expression pattern and altered hormone homeostasis in the evolution of morphological novelty.

Summary In animals, the interface between organism and environment is constituted by the epithelium [1]. In plants, the exchange of nutrients and signals between root and soil is crucial for their survival, but the cellular mechanisms underlying the epithelium-like function and specific localization of proteins to the root surface have not been identified [2]. Here we analyze the mechanism of polar delivery to the root-soil interface of the proteins BOR4, ABCG37, and PEN3, which transport nutrients [2], transport plant hormones, and are required for pathogen defense [3], respectively. The simultaneous visualization of these proteins and the apical and basal cargos in a single cell demonstrates that the outermost cell side represents an additional polar domain. Delivery to this outer polar domain depends on ARF GEF [4] and actin [5–8] function but does not require known molecular components of the apical or basal targeting. The outer polar delivery is, in contrast to known basal and apical cargos [9, 10], mediated by the polar secretion. Our findings show that the outermost cell membranes of roots define an additional polar domain in plant cells along with a specific, previously uncharacterized, polar targeting mechanism that is important for defining the functional, epithelium-like root-soil interface.

The polar, sub-cellular localization of PIN auxin efflux carriers determines the direction of intercellular auxin flow, thus defining the spatial aspect of auxin signalling. Dynamic, transcytosis-like relocalizations of PIN proteins occur in response to external and internal signals, integrating these signals into changes in auxin distribution. Here, we examine the cellular and molecular mechanisms of polar PIN delivery and transcytosis. The mechanisms of the ARF-GEF-dependent polar targeting and transcytosis are well conserved and show little variations among diverse Arabidopsis ecotypes consistent with their fundamental importance in regulating plant development. At the cellular level, we refine previous findings on the role of the actin cytoskeleton in apical and basal PIN targeting, and identify a previously unknown role for microtubules, specifically in basal targeting. PIN protein delivery to different sides of the cell is mediated by ARF-dependent trafficking with a previously unknown complex level of distinct ARF-GEF vesicle trafficking regulators. Our data suggest that alternative recruitment of PIN proteins by these distinct pathways can account for cell type- and cargo-specific aspects of polar targeting, as well as for polarity changes in response to different signals. The resulting dynamic PIN positioning to different sides of cells defines a three-dimensional pattern of auxin fluxes within plant tissues.