AtDSEL, an Arabidopsis cytosolic DAD1-like acylhydrolase, is involved in negative regulation of storage oil mobilization during seedling establishment.

Mobilization of seed storage reserves is essential for seed germination and seedling establishment. Here, we report that AtDSEL, an Arabidopsis thalianaDAD1-like Seedling Establishment-related Lipase, is involved in the mobilization of storage oils for early seedling establishment. AtDSEL is a cytosolic member of the DAD1-like acylhydrolase family encoded by At4g18550. Bacterially expressed AtDSEL preferentially hydrolyzed 1,3-diacylglycerol and 1-monoacylglycerol, suggesting that AtDSEL is an sn-1-specific lipase. AtDSEL-overexpressing transgenic Arabidopsis plants (35S:AtDSEL) were defective in post-germinative seedling growth in medium without an exogenous carbon source. This phenotype was rescued by the addition of sucrose to the growth medium. In contrast, loss-of-function mutant plants (atdsel-1 and atdsel-2) had a mildly fast-growing phenotype regardless of the presence of an exogenous carbon source. Electron microscopy revealed that 5-day-old 35S:AtDSEL cotyledons retained numerous peroxisomes and oil bodies, which were exhausted in wild-type and mutant cotyledons. The impaired seedling establishment of 35S:AtDSEL was not rescued by the addition of an exogenous fatty acid source, and 35S:AtDSEL seedling growth was insensitive to 2,4-dichlorophenoxybutyric acid, indicating that β-oxidation was blocked in AtDSEL-overexpressers. These results suggest that AtDSEL is involved in the negative regulation of seedling establishment by inhibiting the breakdown of storage oils.