Growing connections: PlantConnectome maps molecular networks in Arabidopsis

An organism can have thousands of different proteins, and these proteins must cooperate to ensure the health of an organism. Proteins bind to other proteins and form complexes to carry out their functions. Many proteins interact with multiple other proteins creating a complex network of protein interactions.
These interactions can be represented through maps depicting protein-protein interaction networks, represented as nodes and edges. Nodes are circles that are representative of a protein,...

Plant cells communicate to coordinate their cycle of growth, flowering and fruiting, and activities in roots, shoots, and leaves in response to the changing environmental conditions. Plant signaling is distinct from animal signaling. Plants primarily utilize enzyme-linked receptors, whereas the largest class of cell-surface receptors in animals are G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Unlike animals, receptor tyrosine kinases are rare in plants. Instead, plants have a diverse class of...

Plants have rigid cell walls that are made up of cell wall polysaccharides that mediate cell-cell adhesion. The primary cell walls of plants consist of two independent and interacting polysaccharide networks: a pectin matrix that embeds the second network comprising cellulose and hemicelluloses.
Pectins are complex heteropolymers mainly composed of negatively-charged α-D-glucopyranosyl uronic acid and some neutral glycosyl residues such as α-L-rhamnopyranose, α-L-arabinofuranose,...