Project Details
Projekt
Unconventional ubiquitin chains as regulators of plant development
Applicant
Professor Dr. Andreas Bachmair
Subject Area
Cell Biology
Term
from 2008 to 2012
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 71963938
In addition to the well-established role in proteolysis, the small modifier protein ubiquitin has important functions as a reversible tag in animals and in yeast. Such functions are, however, largely unexplored in plants. Previous work by the applicant indicated that Arabidopsis plants with lesions in two related ubiquitin ligases show complete loss of apical dominance, i. e. mutant plants do not have a main shoot that suppresses the outgrowth of additional shoots on the same plant. The ligases were characterized to have specificity for formation of ubiquitin chains linked via Lys 63 of ubiquitin. Such chains do not target substrates for proteolysis, but facilitate novel protein interactions as molecular switches. We want to investigate the integration of the ligases into developmental processes by identification of substrates, and by in-depth investigation of those aspects of plant hormone metabolism that were shown to be regulated by these ubiquitin ligases.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
