A D53 repression motif induces oligomerization of TOPLESS corepressors and promotes assembly of a corepressor-nucleosome complex

TOPLESS are tetrameric plant corepressors of the conserved Tup1/Groucho/TLE (transducin-like enhancer of split) family. We show that they interact through their TOPLESS domains (TPDs) with two functionally important ethylene response factor-associated amphiphilic repression (EAR) motifs of the rice strigolactone signaling repressor D53: the universally conserved EAR-3 and the monocot-specific EAR-2. We present the crystal structure of the monocot-specific EAR-2 peptide in complex with the TOPLESS-related protein 2 (TPR2) TPD, in which the EAR-2 motif binds the same TPD groove as jasmonate and auxin signaling repressors but makes additional contacts with a second TPD site to mediate TPD tetramer-tetramer interaction. We validated the functional relevance of the two TPD binding sites in reporter gene assays and in transgenic rice and demonstrate that EAR-2 binding induces TPD oligomerization. Moreover, we demonstrate that the TPD directly binds nucleosomes and the tails of histones H3 and H4. Higher-order assembly of TPD complexes induced by EAR-2 binding markedly stabilizes the nucleosome-TPD interaction. These results establish a new TPD-repressor binding mode that promotes TPD oligomerization and TPD-nucleosome interaction, thus illustrating the initial assembly of a repressor-corepressor-nucleosome complex.