%A Shin,Seung Yong %A Park,Ji-Sun %A Park,Hye-Bin %A Moon,Ki-Beom %A Kim,Hyun-Soon %A Jeon,Jae-Heung %A Cho,Hye Sun %A Lee,Hyo-Jun %D 2021 %J Frontiers in Plant Science %C %F %G English %K Feronia,Photoprotection,Photooxidative damage,Stress resistance,ROS %Q %R 10.3389/fpls.2021.714938 %W %L %M %P %7 %8 2021-July-15 %9 Original Research %# %! FERONIA-mediated photoprotection in Arabidopsis %* %< %T FERONIA Confers Resistance to Photooxidative Stress in Arabidopsis %U https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2021.714938 %V 12 %0 JOURNAL ARTICLE %@ 1664-462X %X Plants absorb light energy required for photosynthesis, but excess light can damage plant cells. To protect themselves, plants have developed diverse signaling pathways which are activated under high-intensity light. Plant photoprotection mechanisms have been mainly investigated under conditions of extremely high amount of light; thus, it is largely unknown how plants manage photooxidative damage under moderate light intensities. In the present study, we found that FERONIA (FER) is a key protein that confers resistance to photooxidative stress in plants under moderate light intensity. FER-deficient mutants were highly susceptible to increasing light intensity and exhibited photobleaching even under moderately elevated light intensity (ML). Light-induced expression of stress genes was largely diminished by the fer-4 mutation. In addition, excitation pressure on Photosystem II was significantly increased in fer-4 mutants under ML. Consistently, reactive oxygen species, particularly singlet oxygen, accumulated in fer-4 mutants grown under ML. FER protein abundance was found to be elevated after exposure to ML, which is indirectly affected by the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. Altogether, our findings showed that plants require FER-mediated photoprotection to maintain their photosystems even under moderate light intensity.