Comycete hyphae emerge from a leafPETRA EPPLE, DANGL LAB, UNC - CHAPEL HILL
For the first time, a systematic protein interaction map—or interactome—has been constructed for a plant. In a pair of papers published online today (July 28) in Science, researchers from the Arabidopsis Interactome Mapping Consortium (AIMC) present their data from an extensive effort to map the pairwise interactions of over 2,700 proteins expressed within the cells of Arabidopsis thaliana, and show that pathogens target the most active proteins during infection.
The map shows that “there are few proteins that are highly connected,” said Christian Landry, an assistant professor of Biology at Laval University, who did not participate in the research. “This kind of structure gives robustness to the network because if you target proteins randomly, you are more likely to hit peripheral proteins” and not significantly ...
