Isolation and Characterization of Arabidopsis thaliana GenesEncoding Protein Serine/Threonine Phosphatase Regulatory Subunits.

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9499477 Rundle In the last decade serine/threonine protein phosphatases (PP) have emerged as important regulators of eukaryotic cell metabolism and development. PP control essential cellular functions such as the completion of mitosis and the regulation of enzyme activity in pathways as diverse as glycogen metabolism (in animal cells) and sucrose biosynthesis (in photosynthetic plant cells). PP activity is controlled by different regulatory subunits (RS). These subunits alter both the specificity and activity of the enzyme. This research proposal outlines strategies for detecting RS of PP of plants. To date only one study on this subject has been reported. The goal of this research is to use a molecular cloning approach to detect the presence of plant PP RS. Three different strategies will be used to isolate cDNA sequences encoding RS from animal systems to detect and isolate RS genes of plants. Second, the polymerase chain reaction will be used to amplify RS DNA sequences from A. thaliana genomic DNA. Third, interaction cloning will be used to detect proteins that interact with the catalytic subunit of PP. Characterization of the PP RS isolated by these methods will provide important first hints concerning factors that control plant PP. This work will also have a significant impact on the emerging field of study concerning protein phosphorylation- controlled events in plant cells. %%% Dr. Sabine Rundle has been the holder of an NSF Post-doctoral Research Fellowship in Plant Biology for the past two years. She has recently accepted her first tenure-track faculty position at Western Carolina University where she will pursue research on the role of certain enzymes, serine/threonine protein phosphatases in regulating cellular functions in higher plants. This award will provide a starter grant for support of her research program. The initial goals of this research are to detect and isolate genes for the components of this type of enzyme from the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. The results of this line of research ultimately will contribute to our understanding of fundamental regulatory events in plant cellular function. ***