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The NAC transcription factor family is a large class of DNA-binding proteins found in several plant species. In the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, NAC transcription factors are expressed in different organs, and they are known to modulate many diverse developmental processes, such as meristem formation, flower and fruit development, leaf and fruit senescence. From a previous time-lapse transcriptomic analysis of developing siliques performed by our group, we found a NAC transcription factor, NAC100, that is upregulated during silique development. In this work, we characterized the role of the NAC100 transcription factor and demonstrated that NAC100 contributes to regulating silique growth during the initial phase of their development. nac100 mutant siliques are smaller but such defects can be rescued through the application of exogenous bioactive gibberellin. Gene expression analysis, transactivation assay and endogenous gibberellin quantification indicate that NAC100 modulates gibberellin metabolism, by both directly and indirectly regulating GA-metabolic genes expression, ultimately affecting silique elongation., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Key Message: The barley mutant xan-h.chli-1 shows phenotypic features, such as reduced leaf chlorophyll content and daily transpiration rate, typical of wild barley accessions and landraces adapted to arid climatic conditions. The pale green trait, i.e. reduced chlorophyll content, has been shown to increase the efficiency of photosynthesis and biomass accumulation when photosynthetic microorganisms and tobacco plants are cultivated at high densities. Here, we assess the effects of reducing leaf chlorophyll content in barley by altering the chlorophyll biosynthesis pathway (CBP). To this end, we have isolated and characterised the pale green barley mutant xan-h.chli-1, which carries a missense mutation in the Xan-h gene for subunit I of Mg-chelatase (HvCHLI), the first enzyme in the CBP. Intriguingly, xan-h.chli-1 is the only known viable homozygous mutant at the Xan-h locus in barley. The Arg298Lys amino-acid substitution in the ATP-binding cleft causes a slight decrease in HvCHLI protein abundance and a marked reduction in Mg-chelatase activity. Under controlled growth conditions, mutant plants display reduced accumulation of antenna and photosystem core subunits, together with reduced photosystem II yield relative to wild-type under moderate illumination, and consistently higher than wild-type levels at high light intensities. Moreover, the reduced content of leaf chlorophyll is associated with a stable reduction in daily transpiration rate, and slight decreases in total biomass accumulation and water-use efficiency, reminiscent of phenotypic features of wild barley accessions and landraces that thrive under arid climatic conditions., (© 2024. The Author(s).)