Interaction between two rice mitogen activated protein kinases and its possible role in plant defense

Abstract

Background: The canonical mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway plays a vital role in carrying out the normal growth and development of the plant. The pathway, connecting the upstreams signal with the downstream target is considered to be linear, mostly starting with a MAPKKK and ending in a MAPK.Results: Here we report a novel interaction between two rice MAPKs, OsMPK20-4 and OsMPK3 suggesting the complex nature of the pathway rather than a linear one at individual steps. The interaction between OsMPK20-4 and OsMPK3 found by yeast two-hybrid analysis was confirmed in planta by co-immunoprecipitation and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) assays. The interaction is specific and is phosphorylation independent. The results suggest a role of the interaction between OsMPK20-4 and OsMPK3 in basic plant defense.Conclusions: The current novel work showing the physical interaction between two plant MAPKs, OsMPK20-4 and OsMPK3 is the diversion from the dogma of a typical MAPK cascade thereby opening a new dimension to the MAPK signal transduction.

Keywords

MAP kinase; Protein-protein interaction; Pseudomonas syringae pv. tabaci; Rice; Yeast two-hybrid assay

Published in

BMC Plant Biology
2013, Volume: 13, article number: 121

UKÄ Subject classification

Plant Biotechnology
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Environmental Sciences


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2229-13-121

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/85606