ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Proteomics and Protein Structural Biology
The CRY1-HsF predicted interaction interface serves as a molecular platform for bioengineering or selecting modulating mutants
Provisionally accepted
- 1Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Canada
- 2Universite Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
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High-temperature stress imposes an energetic cost on plant growth and negatively impacts agricultural productivity. This stress rapidly triggers the activation of Heat shock Factor (HsF) proteins, a family of transcription factors that maintain proteostasis. The cryptochrome CRY1 can physically interact with HsFA1d proteins facilitating nucleus translocation and the regulation of genes that contributes to stress tolerance. In this article, we combined structural predictions with experimental testing using yeast-two-hybrid and bimolecular fluorescence complementation assays. Our results confirm that CRY1 PHR domain interacts extensively with multiple HsF proteins through their HR-A region of the conserved oligomerization HR-A/B domain interface. This interaction partially relies on salt bridges provided by the N-and C-terminus of HR-A region and a conserved interface centered around W352 of CRY1. HsFA3 shows the strongest affinity to CRY1 in yeast-two-hybrid assays notably thanks to a glutamate residue that interacts with R211 and R435 of CRY1. Mutating equivalent residue positions within HsFA1e or HsFC1 to a glutamate increased their interaction to CRY1. This analysis allowed the identification of mutant candidate that could be used in selection or bioengineering endeavors to improve thermal stress tolerance.
Keywords: Arabidopsis, Bioengineering, structure prediction, protein-protein interactions, CRY1, Hsf, mutants
Received: 24 Sep 2025; Accepted: 27 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jmii, Bouard, Marcotte, Plamondon and Cappadocia. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Laurent Cappadocia
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