title: A chemical-genetic approach for functional analysis of plant protein kinases.
abstract: Plant genomes encode hundreds of protein kinases, yet only for a small fraction of them precise functions and phosphorylation targets have been identified. Recently, we applied a chemical-genetic approach to sensitize the tomato serine/threonine kinase Pto to analogs of PP1, an ATP-competitive and cell-permeable small-molecule inhibitor. The Pto kinase confers resistance to Pst bacteria by activating immune responses upon specific recognition of bacterial effectors. By using PP1 analogs in combination with the analog-sensitive Pto, we shed new light on the role of Pto kinase activity in effector recognition and signal transduction. Here we broaden the use of this chemical-genetic approach to another defense-related plant protein kinase, the MAP kinase LeMPK3. In addition, we show that analog-sensitive but not wild-type kinases are able to use unnatural N(6)-modified ATP analogs as phosphodonors that can be exploited for tagging direct phosphorylation targets of the kinase of interest. Thus, sensitization of kinases to analogs of the small-molecule inhibitor PP1 and ATP can be an effective tool for the discovery of cellular functions and phosphorylation substrates of plant protein kinases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Dor
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Salomon
authors.forename: Arale
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bonshtien
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sessa