Acetolactate synthase regulatory subunits play divergent and overlapping roles in branched-chain amino acid synthesis and Arabidopsis development

BACKGROUND

Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are synthesized by plants, fungi, bacteria, and archaea with plants being the major source of these amino acids in animal diets. Acetolactate synthase (ALS) is the first enzyme in the BCAA synthesis pathway. Although the functional contribution of ALS to BCAA biosynthesis has been extensively characterized, a comprehensive understanding of the regulation of this pathway at the molecular level is still lacking.

RESULTS

To characterize the regulatory processes governing ALS activity we utilized several complementary approaches. Using the ALS catalytic protein subunit as bait we performed a yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) screen which resulted in the identification of a set of interacting proteins, two of which (denoted as ALS-INTERACTING PROTEIN1 and 3 [AIP1 and AIP3, respectively]) were found to be evolutionarily conserved orthologues of bacterial feedback-regulatory proteins and therefore implicated in the regulation of ALS activity. To investigate the molecular role AIPs might play in BCAA synthesis in Arabidopsis thaliana, we examined the functional contribution of aip1 and aip3 knockout alleles to plant patterning and development and BCAA synthesis under various growth conditions. Loss-of-function genetic backgrounds involving these two genes exhibited differential aberrant growth responses in valine-, isoleucine-, and sodium chloride-supplemented media. While BCAA synthesis is believed to be localized to the chloroplast, both AIP1 and AIP3 were found to localize to the peroxisome in addition to the chloroplast. Analysis of free amino acid pools in the mutant backgrounds revealed that they differ in the absolute amount of individual BCAAs accumulated and exhibit elevated levels of BCAAs in leaf tissues. Despite the phenotypic differences observed in aip1 and aip3 backgrounds, functional redundancy between these loci was suggested by the finding that aip1/aip3 double knockout mutants are severely developmentally compromised.

CONCLUSIONS

Taken together the data suggests that the two regulatory proteins, in conjunction with ALS, have overlapping but distinct functions in BCAA synthesis, and also play a role in pathways unrelated to BCAA synthesis such as sodium-ion homeostasis, extending to broader aspects of patterning and development.

The SKP1-like gene family of Arabidopsis exhibits a high degree of differential gene expression and gene product interaction during development

The Arabidopsis thaliana genome encodes several families of polypeptides that are known or predicted to participate in the formation of the SCF-class of E3-ubiquitin ligase complexes. One such gene family encodes the Skp1-like class of polypeptide subunits, where 21 genes have been identified and are known to be expressed in Arabidopsis. Phylogenetic analysis based on deduced polypeptide sequence organizes the family of ASK proteins into 7 clades. The complexity of the ASK gene family, together with the close structural similarity among its members raises the prospect of significant functional redundancy among select paralogs. We have assessed the potential for functional redundancy within the ASK gene family by analyzing an expanded set of criteria that define redundancy with higher resolution. The criteria used include quantitative expression of locus-specific transcripts using qRT-PCR, assessment of the sub-cellular localization of individual ASK:YFP auto-fluorescent fusion proteins expressed in vivo as well as the in planta assessment of individual ASK-F-Box protein interactions using bimolecular fluorescent complementation techniques in combination with confocal imagery in live cells. The results indicate significant functional divergence of steady state transcript abundance and protein-protein interaction specificity involving ASK proteins in a pattern that is poorly predicted by sequence-based phylogeny. The information emerging from this and related studies will prove important for defining the functional intersection of expression, localization and gene product interaction that better predicts the formation of discrete SCF complexes, as a prelude to investigating their molecular mode of action.

Modeling, design, chiral aspects and role of para-substituents in aryloxypropranolamine based beta-blockers

The conformation of the beta-blockers viz. metoprolol, atenolol, bisoprolol, betaxolol and celiprolol has been investigated using Perturbative Configuration Interaction of Localized Orbitals (PCILO) method. The conformational energy maps have been constructed for both the enantiomers (R and S) by rotating the molecule from the para-substituent end. The aryloxypropranolamine moiety adopts the same conformation for all antagonists. The graphical view of R- and S- form of these antagonists in the lowest energy conformation reveals that it is only in the S- form of beta-blockers, all the three functionalities--aromatic moiety, amino and beta-hydroxyl groups are available for interaction with beta-adrenoceptors. The para-substituents of the beta-blockers adopt a conformation which is perpendicular to the aryloxy moiety resulting in an L-shaped structure. The beta-antagonists possibly partition into the lipid bilayer through the para-substituents and the aryloxypropranolamine moiety containing the functionalities, thus, lies parallel to the plane of lipid bilayer for interaction with beta-adrenoceptors. Superimposition of S-bisoprolol in lowest energy conformation with the 3rd putative transmembranous segment of the beta-adrenoceptors reveals that the aromatic moiety, amino and beta-hydroxyl groups of antagonists are involved in interaction with the side chains of Trp-109, Asp-113 and Thr-110 respectively. This has been further substantiated by the interaction studies on the model systems.