Receptor-like kinases (RLKs)3 play important roles in many biological processes, including development and immunity responses, in both animals and plants. Most RLKs possess intrinsic protein kinase activity and regulate downstream signaling through phosphorylation and dephosphorylation events (1-5). Kinases are classified as arginine-aspartate (RD) or non-RD kinases. RD kinases carry a conserved arginine (Arg) immediately preceding the catalytic aspartate (Asp) (6). RD kinases are regulated by autophosphorylation of the activation segment, a centrally located loop positioned close to the catalytic center.In contrast to RD kinases, non-RD kinases typically carry a cysteine or glycine in place of the arginine. We have previously reported that non-RD kinases are associated with the control of early signaling events in both plant and animal innate immunity (7). For example, in humans, non-RD kinases associate with proteins belonging to the Toll-like receptor (TLR) family, which contain leucine-rich repeats in the extracellular domain and Toll-interleukin receptor intracellular domains (8). TLRs recognize pathogen-associated molecular patterns at the cell surface and then activate a common signaling pathway through an association with non-RD kinases to induce a core set of defense responses (9). TLR1, TLR3, TLR5, TLR6, TLR7, TLR8, and TLR9 function through the non-RD interleukin-1 receptor-associated kinase (IRAK1), whereas TLR3 and TLR4 function through the non-RD receptor interacting-protein 1 (10). In plants, RLKs demonstrated to function in mediating innate immunity fall into the non-RD class (10) or are associated with non-RD RLKs (11-13). These include the Arabidopsis pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), flagellin sensitive 2 (FLS2) (14) and elongation factor-Tu receptor (15), the rice PRRs, such as XA21 (16), XA26 (17), and Pid2 (or called Pi-d2) (18), the barley PRG1 (resistance to Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici) (19), and the Arabidposis RD RLK BAK1 that associates with the non-RD RLK FLS2 (11). Unlike RD kinases, non-RD kinases do not autophosphorylate their activation segments (6,10,20). Given the demonstrated importance of the non-RD class of kinases in innate immunity, there is great interest in understanding their mode of action.RLKs contain a juxtamembrane (JM) domain located between the transmembrane and kinase domains. It is now clear that the JM domain can play an important role in regulating the function of kinase. For example, deletion of the JM domain of the epidermal growth factor (ErbB-1) kinase (an RD RLK) results in a severe loss of tyrosine phosphorylation (1). Two conserved tyrosine phosphorylation sites Tyr 605 and Tyr 611 of EphB2 are essential for EphB2 kinase autophosphorylation and biological responses (21,22). Phosphorylation of the JM domain of the type I transforming growth factor- (TR-I, an RD RLK) eliminates the binding site for the FKBP12 (12-kDa FK506-binding protein) inhibitor protein, leading to activation of the TR-I kinase (23, 24). To date, the role of the