title: Protein phosphatases PP2A, PP4 and PP6: mediators and regulators in development and responses to environmental cues.
abstract: The three closely related groups of serine/threonine protein phosphatases PP2A, PP4 and PP6 are conserved throughout eukaryotes. The catalytic subunits are present in trimeric and dimeric complexes with scaffolding and regulatory subunits that control activity and confer substrate specificity to the protein phosphatases. In Arabidopsis, three scaffolding (A subunits) and 17 regulatory (B subunits) proteins form complexes with five PP2A catalytic subunits giving up to 255 possible combinations. Three SAP-domain proteins act as regulatory subunits of PP6. Based on sequence similarities with proteins in yeast and mammals, two putative PP4 regulatory subunits are recognized in Arabidopsis. Recent breakthroughs have been made concerning the functions of some of the PP2A and PP6 regulatory subunits, for example the FASS/TON2 in regulation of the cellular skeleton, B' subunits in brassinosteroid signalling and SAL proteins in regulation of auxin transport. Reverse genetics is starting to reveal also many more physiological functions of other subunits. A system with key regulatory proteins (TAP46, TIP41, PTPA, LCMT1, PME-1) is present in all eukaryotes to stabilize, activate and inactivate the catalytic subunits. In this review, we present the status of knowledge concerning physiological functions of PP2A, PP4 and PP6 in Arabidopsis, and relate these to yeast and mammals.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Organelle Research, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, N-4036, Norway.
authors.forename: Cathrine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lillo
authors.forename: Amr R A
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Kataya
authors.forename: Behzad
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Heidari
authors.forename: Maria T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Creighton
authors.forename: Dugassa
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Nemie-Feyissa
authors.forename: Zekarias
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ginbot
authors.forename: Else M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Jonassen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D020134:Catalytic Domain; D004777:Environment; D010749:Phosphoprotein Phosphatases / Q000378:metabolism*; D063245:Plant Development; D010944:Plants / Q000201:enzymology*; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000201:enzymology
chemical_list: D010749:Phosphoprotein Phosphatases
keywords: Arabidopsis; TAP46; TOR pathway; flowering time; nitrate reductase; peroxisomes