Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Are euAP3 and PI motif not essential for floral organ identity?

[Paper]
Conserved C-terminal motifs of the Arabidopsis proteins APETALA3 and PISTILLATA are dispensable for floral organ identity function.
Piwarzyk E, Yang Y, Jack T
Plant Physiol 2007 Dec 145(4):1495-505

雖然在本篇的標題給了個question mark,不過這確是這篇paper的結論。作者們將C端尾巴被去掉不同程度的AP3及PI放回阿拉伯芥的突變株中,檢測其性狀的表現,而得到上述的結果。另外也利用yeast three-hybrid證實移除PI motif並不影響其與AP3和SEP1的結合。如果C端這些特異但在演化歷史上被高度保留的序列不重要,那我們該如何思考其功能及演化上的意義呢?