Abstract
The mevalonate pathway plays a critical role in multiple cellular processes in both animals and plants. In plants, the products of this pathway impact growth and development, as well as the response to environmental stress. A forward genetic screen of Arabidopsis thaliana using Ca2+-imaging identified mevalonate kinase (MVK) as a critical component of plant purinergic signaling. MVK interacts directly with the plant extracellular ATP (eATP) receptor P2K1 and is phosphorylated by P2K1 in response to eATP. Mutation of P2K1-mediated phosphorylation sites in MVK eliminates the ATP-induced cytoplasmic calcium response, MVK enzymatic activity, and suppresses pathogen defense. The data demonstrate that the plasma membrane associated P2K1 directly impacts plant cellular metabolism by phosphorylation of MVK, a key enzyme in the mevalonate pathway. The results underline the importance of purinergic signaling in plants and the ability of eATP to influence the activity of a key metabolite pathway with global effects on plant metabolism.
Highlights
The mevalonate pathway plays a critical role in multiple cellular processes in both animals and plants
The same genetic screen that led to the identification of P2K1 as an extracellular ATP (eATP) receptor identified a number of additional mutations that affected the eATP-induced cytoplasmic calcium response, but did not map to the p2k1 gene[30]
We previously showed that eATP elicits the activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs)[30,37]
Summary
The mevalonate pathway plays a critical role in multiple cellular processes in both animals and plants. Surprising given the level of research attention given to the MVA pathway, there are no reports of mevalonate kinase (mvk) mutants It is unclear what phenotypes would be associated with the loss of this key, early enzyme in the pathway. In order to further elucidate the details of the plant eATP signaling pathway, we performed a forward genetic screen based on the aequorin-bioluminescence Ca2+ imaging approach[35] This resulted in the identification of an Arabidopsis mutant that was defective in Ca2+ influx triggered upon eATP addition. Subsequent research showed that MVK directly interacts with the eATP receptor P2K1 resulting in transphosphorylation of MVK and subsequent activation of the mevalonate pathway These results further underline the ability of purinergic signaling to impact a wide variety of plant processes, similar to its impact on animal physiology
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