Cracking the Plant Cell Membrane Code

A team of researchers at the Carnegie Institute Department of Plant Biology has developed a high throughput technology to determine protein interactions in sensor-laden membranes surrounding the cells that control nutrient and water uptake, secrete toxins, interact with the environment and neighboring cells affecting growth and development. This is based on a cell's internal cell membrane machinery whereby protein binding would trigger a cascade of internal processes in the cell membrane.

Using the mating-based protein complementation assay or split ubiquitin system, the scientists fuse candidate proteins onto one half of a version of the ubiquitin protein. Fusing of this half ubiquitin with another half ubiquitin which carries another candidate protein would result to a triggering process that liberates a transcription factor that switches a gene which goes to the nucleus. The researchers are alerted to the successful interaction and would consider this a protein binding event.

The team composed of scientists from the University of California San Diego, Penn State and the University of Maryland hopes to test the 36 million potential interactions as well as the sensitivity of the interactions to small molecules with a high-throughput robotics system. The technology will find applications in engineering better, more productive crops and in the development of new drugs to combat disease.

See the details of the article at http://www.ciw.edu/news/cracking_plant_cell_membrane_code