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Imaging Spatial Reorganization of a MAPK Signaling Pathway Using the Tobacco Transient Expression System
Published on: March 20, 2016
Evolving circuitries in plant signaling cascades
Jaccoline M S Zegers1, Iker Irisarri1,2, Sophie de Vries1
1University of Goettingen, Institute for Microbiology and Genetics, Department of Applied Bioinformatics, Goldschmidtstr. 1, 37077 Goettingen, Germany.
Abstract:
Land plants are astounding processors of information; due to their sessile nature, they adjust the molecular programs that define their development and physiology in accordance with the environment in which they dwell. Transduction of the external input to the respective internal programs hinges to a large degree on molecular signaling cascades, many of which have deep evolutionary origins in the ancestors of land plants and its closest relatives, streptophyte algae. In this Review, we discuss the evolutionary history of the defining factors of streptophyte signaling cascades, circuitries that not only operate in extant land plants and streptophyte algae, but that also likely operated in their extinct algal ancestors hundreds of millions of years ago. We hope this Review offers a starting point for future studies on the evolutionary mechanisms contributing to the current diversity and complexity of plant signaling pathways, with an emphasis on recognizing potential biases.
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