Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2025

Identification of the Genes Involved in Stomatal Development via Epidermal Phenotype Scoring
Published on: January 20, 2023
Evolution of a plant growth-regulatory protein interaction specificity
Zhe Ji1,2, Eric J Belfield1, Siyu Zhang3
1Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Abstract:
Specific protein-protein interactions (PPIs) enable biological regulation. However, the evolution of PPI specificity is little understood. Here we trace the evolution of the land-plant growth-regulatory DELLA-SLY1/GID2 PPI, revealing progressive increase in specificity of affinity of SLY1/GID2 for a particular DELLA form. While early-diverging SLY1s display relatively broad-range DELLA affinity, later-diverging SLY1s tend towards increasingly stringent affinity for a specific DELLA A' form generated by the growth-promoting phytohormone gibberellin (GA). Our novel mutational strategy reveals amino acid substitutions contributing to the evolution of Arabidopsis thaliana SLY1 A' specificity, also showing that routes permitting reversion to broader affinity became increasingly constrained over evolutionary time. We suggest that progressive affinity narrowing may be an important evolutionary driver of PPI specificity and that increase in SLY1/GID2-DELLA specificity enabled the enhanced flexibility of plant physiological environmental adaptation conferred by the GA-DELLA growth-regulatory mechanism.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Cell Signaling in Plants
Protein Complexes with Interchangeable Parts
The SCF ubiquitin ligase is a protein complex of five individual proteins. This complex attaches ubiquitin to other target proteins to mark them for degradation. In order...
Riboswitches
The aptamer has high specificity for a particular metabolite which allows riboswitches to specifically regulate...
Covalently Linked Protein Regulators
Interactions Between Signaling Pathways
Convergence and divergence, and cross-talk between signaling pathways
Two distinct signaling pathways can converge on a single functional unit, which may either be a single protein or a complex of proteins. The response is either functionally distinct or synergistic between the two pathways but different from the response...
Photoreceptors and Plant Responses to Light

