Departamento de Biología Molecular de Plantas, Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México.
Centro de Investigación en Dinámica Celular, Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias Básicas y Aplicadas, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México.
PLoS One. 2021 Apr 23;16(4):e0250584. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250584. eCollection 2021.
Protein phosphorylation is regulated by the activity of enzymes generically known as kinases. One of those kinases is Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases (MAPK), which operate through a phosphorylation cascade conformed by members from three related protein kinase families namely MAPK kinase kinase (MEKK), MAPK kinase (MEK), and MAPK; these three acts hierarchically. Establishing the evolution of these proteins in the plant kingdom is an interesting but complicated task because the current MAPK, MAPKK, and MAPKKK subfamilies arose from duplications and subsequent sub-functionalization during the early stage of the emergence of Viridiplantae. Here, an in silico genomic analysis was performed on 18 different plant species, which resulted in the identification of 96 genes not previously annotated as components of the MAPK (70) and MEK (26) families. Interestingly, a deeper analysis of the sequences encoded by such genes revealed the existence of putative domains not previously described as signatures of MAPK and MEK kinases. Additionally, our analysis also suggests the presence of conserved activation motifs besides the canonical TEY and TDY domains, which characterize the MAPK family.
蛋白质磷酸化受通常称为激酶的酶的活性调节。其中一种激酶是丝裂原活化蛋白激酶（MAPK），它通过由三个相关蛋白激酶家族的成员组成的磷酸化级联反应发挥作用，即 MAPK 激酶激酶（MEKK）、MAPK 激酶（MEK）和 MAPK；这三个作用是分层的。确定植物王国中这些蛋白质的进化是一项有趣但复杂的任务，因为当前的 MAPK、MAPKK 和 MAPKKK 亚家族是在 Viridiplantae 早期出现时通过复制和随后的亚功能化产生的。在这里，对 18 种不同的植物物种进行了计算机基因组分析，结果鉴定出了 96 个以前未注释为 MAPK（70）和 MEK（26）家族组成部分的基因。有趣的是，对这些基因编码的序列进行更深入的分析表明，存在以前未描述为 MAPK 和 MEK 激酶特征的假定结构域。此外，我们的分析还表明，除了表征 MAPK 家族的典型 TEY 和 TDY 结构域外，还存在保守的激活基序。
