Functional Divergence of Microtubule-Associated TPX2 Family Members in Arabidopsis thaliana
by
Eva Dvořák Tomaštíková 1,*
, Twan Rutten 2, Petr Dvořák 3, Alisa Tugai 2, Klara Ptošková 1, Beáta Petrovská 1, Daniel van Damme 4,5, Andreas Houben 2, Jaroslav Doležel 1 and Dmitri Demidov 2,*
Eva Dvořák Tomaštíková 1,*, Twan Rutten 2, Petr Dvořák 3, Alisa Tugai 2, Klara Ptošková 1, Beáta Petrovská 1, Daniel van Damme 4,5, Andreas Houben 2, Jaroslav Doležel 1 and Dmitri Demidov 2,*
1
Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Centre of the Region Hana for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research, Šlechtitelů 31, CZ-77900 Olomouc, Czech Republic
2
Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Gatersleben, Corrensstrasse 3, 06466 Seeland, Germany
3
Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Palacký University Olomouc, Šlechtitelů 27, CZ-78371 Olomouc, Czech Republic
4
Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, 9052 Ghent, Belgium
5
Center for Plant Systems Biology, VIB, 9052 Ghent, Belgium
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21(6), 2183; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21062183
Received: 28 February 2020 / Revised: 18 March 2020 / Accepted: 19 March 2020 / Published: 22 March 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Cell and Organism Development)
TPX2 (Targeting Protein for Xklp2) is an evolutionary conserved microtubule-associated protein important for microtubule nucleation and mitotic spindle assembly. The protein was described as an activator of the mitotic kinase Aurora A in humans and the Arabidopsis AURORA1 (AUR1) kinase. In contrast to animal genomes that encode only one TPX2 gene, higher plant genomes encode a family with several TPX2-LIKE gene members (TPXL). TPXL genes of Arabidopsis can be divided into two groups. Group A proteins (TPXL2, 3, 4, and 8) contain Aurora binding and TPX2_importin domains, while group B proteins (TPXL1, 5, 6, and 7) harbor an Xklp2 domain. Canonical TPX2 contains all the above-mentioned domains. We confirmed using in vitro kinase assays that the group A proteins contain a functional Aurora kinase binding domain. Transient expression of Arabidopsis TPX2-like proteins in Nicotiana benthamiana revealed preferential localization to microtubules and nuclei. Co-expression of AUR1 together with TPX2-like proteins changed the localization of AUR1, indicating that these proteins serve as targeting factors for Aurora kinases. Taken together, we visualize the various localizations of the TPX2-LIKE family in Arabidopsis as a proxy to their functional divergence and provide evidence of their role in the targeted regulation of AUR1 kinase activity.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
Arabidopsis thaliana; targeting protein for Xklp2; aurora kinase 1; phylogeny; kinase assay; in vivo co-localization
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
- Supplementary File 1:
ZIP-Document (ZIP, 5448 KB)
MDPI and ACS Style
Dvořák Tomaštíková, E.; Rutten, T.; Dvořák, P.; Tugai, A.; Ptošková, K.; Petrovská, B.; van Damme, D.; Houben, A.; Doležel, J.; Demidov, D. Functional Divergence of Microtubule-Associated TPX2 Family Members in Arabidopsis thaliana. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21, 2183.
Show more citation formats
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
Search more from Scilit
