Border Control-- Jones AM, Xuan Y, Xu M, Wang RS, Ho C-H, Lalonde S, Hun You C, Sardi MI, Parsa SA, Smith-Valle E, Su T, Frazer KA, Pilot G, Pratelli R, Grossmann G, Acharya BR, Hu H-G, Engineer C, Villiers F, Ju C, Takeda K, Su Z, Dong Q, Assmann SM, Chen J, Kwak JM, Schroeder JI, Albert R, Rhee SY, Frommer WB

Cellular membranes act as signaling platforms and control solute transport. Membrane receptors, transporters, and enzymes communicate with intracellular processes through protein-protein interactions. Using a split-ubiquitin yeast two-hybrid screen that covers a test-space of 6.4 × 10^6 pairs, we identified 12,102 membrane/signaling protein interactions from Arabidopsis. Besides confirmation of expected interactions such as heterotrimeric G protein subunit interactions and aquaporin oligomerization, >99% of the interactions were previously unknown. Interactions were confirmed at a rate of 32% in orthogonal in planta split–green fluorescent protein interaction assays, which was statistically indistinguishable from the confirmation rate for known interactions collected from literature (38%). Regulatory associations in membrane protein trafficking, turnover, and phosphorylation include regulation of potassium channel activity through abscisic acid signaling, transporter activity by a WNK kinase, and a brassinolide receptor kinase by trafficking-related proteins. These examples underscore the utility of the membrane/signaling protein interaction network for gene discovery and hypothesis generation in plants and other organisms.

Science 2014. PMID: 24833385 DOI: 10.1126/science.1251358