Elements of transcriptional machinery are compatible among plants and mammals

In the present work, the objective has been to analyse the compatibility of plant and human transcriptional machinery. The experiments revealed that nuclear import and export are conserved among plants and mammals. Further it has been shown that transactivation of a human promoter occurs by human transcription factor NF-κB in plant cells, demonstrating that the transcriptional machinery is highly conserved in both kingdoms. Functionality was also seen for regulatory elements of NF-κB such as its inhibitor IκB isoform α that negatively regulated the transactivation activity of the p50/RelA heterodimer by interaction with NF-κB in plant cells. Nuclear export of RelA could be demonstrated by FRAP-measurements so that RelA shows nucleo-cytoplasmic shuttling as reported for RelA in mammalian cells. The data reveals the high level of compatibility of human transcriptional elements with the plant transcriptional machinery. Thus, Arabidopsis thaliana mesophyll protoplasts might provide a new heterologous expression system for the investigation of the human NF-κB signaling pathways. The system successfully enabled the controlled manipulation of NF-κB activity. We suggest the plant protoplast system as a tool for reconstitution and analyses of mammalian pathways and for direct observation of responses to e.g. pharmaceuticals. The major advantage of the system is the absence of interference with endogenous factors that affect and crosstalk with the pathway.