Peptide Arrays for Binding Studies of E3 Ubiquitin Ligases

Trichome Transcripts as Efficiency Control for Synthetic Biology and Molecular Farming

A variety of methods for studying glandular leaf hairs (trichomes) as multicellular micro-organs are well established for synthetic biology platforms like tobacco or tomato but rather rare for nonglandular and usually single-celled trichomes of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. A thorough isolation of-ideally intact-trichomes is decisive for further biochemical and genomic analyses of primary and secondary metabolic compounds, enzymes, and especially transcripts to monitor initial success of an engineering approach. While isolation of tomato or tobacco trichomes is rather easy, by simply freezing whole plants in liquid nitrogen and brushing off trichomes, this approach does not work for Arabidopsis. This is mainly due to damage of trichome cells during the collection procedure and very low yield. Here, we provide a robust method for a virtually epithelial cell-free isolation of Arabidopsis trichomes. This method is then joined with an RNA isolation protocol to perform mRNA analysis on extracts of the isolated trichomes using a semi-quantitative RT-PCR setup.

Conditional Protein Function via N-Degron Pathway-Mediated Proteostasis in Stress Physiology

The N-degron pathway, formerly the N-end rule pathway, regulates functions of regulatory proteins. It impacts protein half-life and therefore directs the actual presence of target proteins in the cell. The current concept holds that the N-degron pathway depends on the identity of the amino (N)-terminal amino acid and many other factors, such as the follow-up sequence at the N terminus, conformation, flexibility, and protein localization. It is evolutionarily conserved throughout the kingdoms. One possible entry point for substrates of the N-degron pathway is oxidation of N-terminal Cys residues. Oxidation of N-terminal Cys is decisive for further enzymatic modification of various neo-N termini by arginylation that generates potentially neofunctionalized or instable proteoforms. Here, I focus on the posttranslational modifications that are encompassed by protein degradation via the Cys/Arg branch of the N-degron pathway-part of the PROTEOLYSIS 6 (PRT6)/N-degron pathway-as well as the underlying physiological principles of this branch and its biological significance in stress response.

New beginnings and new ends: methods for large-scale characterization of protein termini and their use in plant biology

Dynamic regulation of protein function and abundance plays an important role in virtually every aspect of plant life. Diversifying mechanisms at the RNA and protein level result in many protein molecules with distinct sequence and modification, termed proteoforms, arising from a single gene. Distinct protein termini define proteoforms arising from translation of alternative transcripts, use of alternative translation initiation sites, and different co- and post-translational modifications of the protein termini. Also site-specific proteolytic processing by endo- and exoproteases generates truncated proteoforms, defined by distinct protease-generated neo-N- and neo-C-termini, that may exhibit altered activity, function, and localization compared with their precursor proteins. In eukaryotes, the N-degron pathway targets cytosolic proteins, exposing destabilizing N-terminal amino acids and/or destabilizing N-terminal modifications for proteasomal degradation. This enables rapid and selective removal not only of unfolded proteins, but also of substrate proteoforms generated by proteolytic processing or changes in N-terminal modifications. Here we summarize current protocols enabling proteome-wide analysis of protein termini, which have provided important new insights into N-terminal modifications and protein stability determinants, protein maturation pathways, and protease-substrate relationships in plants.