SlZF3 regulates tomato plant height by directly repressing SlGA20ox4 in gibberellic acid biosynthesis pathway

Abstract Plant height is an important target trait for crop genetic improvement. Our previous work has identified a salt-tolerant C2H2 zinc finger, SlZF3, and its overexpression lines also showed a semi-dwarf phenotype, but the molecular mechanism remains to be elucidated. Here, we characterized the dwarf phenotype in detail. The dwarfism is caused by a decrease in stem internode cell elongation and deficiency of bioactive gibberellic acids (GAs), and can be rescued by exogenous GA3 treatment. Gene expression assays detected reduced expression of genes in the GA biosynthesis pathway of the overexpression lines, including SlGA20ox4. Several protein–DNA interaction methods confirmed that SlZF3 can directly bind to the SlGA20ox4 promoter and inhibit its expression, and the interaction can also occur for SlKS and SlKO. Overexpression of SlGA20ox4 in the SlZF3-overexpressing line can recover the dwarf phenotype. Therefore, SlZF3 regulates plant height by directly repressing genes in the tomato GA biosynthesis pathway.