Plant steroids offer new paradigm for how hor...(we aim for a comprehensive survey of all...)

Date:7/24/2008

we aim for a comprehensive survey of all the genes in genome. In proteomics, we're mapping the proteins." Because there can be hundreds of thousands of different proteins in a single organism, proteomics requires techniques, such as 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis, which can process and segregate thousands of proteins at a time based on differences in their size and charge.

But even with these methods, isolating the low-abundance signaling proteins was a daunting task. "Earlier attempts to identify these molecules failed, because the analyses were swamped by the more abundant proteins," says Wang. "But because we knew the proteins would be associated with the cell membrane, we tried separating the membranes from the rest of the cell material and just analyzed that fraction. And that worked."

The study targeted a class of proteins called kinases, which transmit signals by exchanging phosphate ions. The electrophoresis analyses identified a group of kinases that responded to the presence of brassinosteroids. The researchers called these proteins BSKs (brassinosteroid signaling kinases). Follow-up analyses confirmed their crucial function in brassinosteroid signaling.

"BRKs are the first major signaling component to be identified by a quantitative proteomics approach in plants." says Wang. "Finding them fills a major gap in the brassinosteroid signal pathway and may have major implications for our understanding of other signaling processes in plants as well. The plant genome codes for many hundreds of receptors at the cell surface, but a major missing link is their connection to the intracellular signaling cascades. Plant cells also contain quite a number of proteins that are similar to BSK, so it is tempting to speculate that they represent these missing connections". Wang's findings have not only helped establish the connections of the steroid signaling pathway, but possibly offers a paradigm for both kinase signaling in plants and for
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Contact: Zhi-Yong Wang zywang24@stanford.ed 650-325-1521 x205 Carnegie Institution Source:Eurekalert

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