Phylogenomic analysis of MKKs and MAPKs from 16 legumes and detection of interacting pairs in chickpea divulge MAPK signalling modules

Abstract

The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)-mediated phosphorylation cascade is a vital component of plant cellular signalling. Despite this, MAPK signalling cascade is less characterized in crop legumes. To fill this void, we present here a comprehensive phylogeny of MAPK kinases (MKKs) and MAPKs identified from 16 legume species belonging to genistoid (Lupinus angustifolius), dalbergioid (Arachis spp.), phaseoloid (Glycine max, Cajanus cajan, Phaseolus vulgaris, and Vigna spp.), and galegoid (Cicer arietinum, Lotus japonicus, Medicago truncatula, Pisum sativum, Trifolium spp., and Vicia faba) clades. Using the genes of the diploid crop chickpea (C. arietinum), an exhaustive interaction analysis was performed between MKKs and MAPKs by split-ubiquitin based yeast two-hybrid (Y2H). Twenty seven interactions of varying strengths were identified between chickpea MKKs and MAPKs. These interactions were verified in planta by bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC). As a first report in plants, four intra-molecular interactions of weak strength were identified within chickpea MKKs. Additionally; two TEOSINTE-BRANCHED1/CYCLOIDEA/PCF (TCP) transcription factors of class I were identified as novel down-stream interacting partners of seven MAPKs. We propose that this highly reliable MAPK interaction network, presented here for chickpea, can be utilized as a reference for legumes and thus will help in deciphering their role in legume-specific events.

Defense responses of lentil (Lens culinaris) genotypes carrying non-allelic ascochyta blight resistance genes to Ascochyta lentis infection

“…This indicates that MAPK signaling pathway is highly conserved among different legumes species. Purayannur et al [ 37 ] reported a direct interaction between CaMAPK3 and CaMAPK7 , indicating the potential for a direct interaction between MEK2 and MAPK20-1 in the present study. The up-regulation of MEK2 and MAPK20 -1 in CDC Robin further supports that these genes function together in MAPK signaling in this genotype.…”

“…MEK2 has a function in protein phosphorylation during PAMP signaling and interacts with SNF-related kinase ( SNRK ) which was induced in all genotypes in the present study ( S5 Table ). Recently, MAPK signaling was characterized in multiple legume species [ 37 ]. Comparing the CDC Redberry sequences with the MAPK genes reported by Purayannur et al [ 37 ] in chickpea ( Cicer oreintanum ) and M .…”

“…Recently, MAPK signaling was characterized in multiple legume species [ 37 ]. Comparing the CDC Redberry sequences with the MAPK genes reported by Purayannur et al [ 37 ] in chickpea ( Cicer oreintanum ) and M . trancatula showed 92.6% sequence identity between MAPK20-1 (LC34453) and CaMAPK3 (LOC101510662), 93.5% between MAPK-ntf6 (LC19505) and Medtr4g061320, 87.2% between MAPKK (LC08191) and Medtr4g005830 and 93.4% between MEK2 (LC14914) and CaMAPK7 (LOC101489531).…”

“…For genes annotated as mitogen activated proein kinases (MAPK), the CDC Redberry sequence was blasted against the chickpea and M . trancatula MAPK sequences previously reported by Purayannur [ 37 ] using standalone BLASTn v. 2.2.29 ( https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?CMD=Web&PAGE_TYPE=BlastDocs&DOC_TYPE=Download ).…”

Two splice variants of the DsMEK1 mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MAPKK) is involved different way in salt stress regulation in Dunaliella salina

“…MAPK cascade pathway plays a pivotal role in plant development or stress response. In many species, the numbers of MAPKKK and MAPK are far more than MAPKK [29,41,42], the number of interaction pairs of MAPKKK-MAPKK and MAPKK-MAPK are also more than the number of MAPKK gene [42,43]. This results indicate that the number of MAPKK genes does not match the functional diversity of the MAPK cascade pathway.…”