Small yet effective: the ethylene responsive element binding factor-associated amphiphilic repression (EAR) motif

The Ethylene-responsive element binding factor-associated Amphiphilic Repression (EAR) motif is a small yet distinct regulatory motif that is conserved in many plant transcriptional regulator (TR) proteins associated with diverse biological functions. We have previously established a list of high-confidence Arabidopsis EAR repressors, the EAR repressome, comprising 219 TRs belonging to 21 different TR families. This class of proteins and the sequence context of the EAR motif exhibited a high degree of conservation across evolutionarily diverse plant species. Our comprehensive genome-wide analysis enabled refining EAR motifs as comprising either LxLxL or DLNxxP. Comparing the representation of these sequence signatures in TRs to that of other repressor motifs we show that the EAR motif is the one most frequently represented, detected in 10 to 25% of the TRs from diverse plant species. The mechanisms involved in regulation of EAR motif function and the cellular fates of EAR repressors are currently not well understood. Our earlier analysis had implicated amino acid residues flanking the EAR motifs in regulation of their functionality. Here, we present additional evidence supporting possible regulation of EAR motif function by phosphorylation of integral or adjacent Ser and/or Thr residues. Additionally, we discuss potential novel roles of EAR motifs in plant-pathogen interaction and processes other than transcriptional repression.