* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download The alphabet soup of plant intracellular signalling: enter cyclic
Protein moonlighting wikipedia , lookup
Transcriptional regulation wikipedia , lookup
Cell-penetrating peptide wikipedia , lookup
Plant breeding wikipedia , lookup
G protein–coupled receptor wikipedia , lookup
Secreted frizzled-related protein 1 wikipedia , lookup
Promoter (genetics) wikipedia , lookup
Gene expression profiling wikipedia , lookup
Endogenous retrovirus wikipedia , lookup
Vectors in gene therapy wikipedia , lookup
Gene expression wikipedia , lookup
Gene therapy of the human retina wikipedia , lookup
Artificial gene synthesis wikipedia , lookup
Silencer (genetics) wikipedia , lookup
Paracrine signalling wikipedia , lookup
Gene regulatory network wikipedia , lookup
419 The alphabet soup of plant intracellular signalling: enter cyclic nucleotides Richard Walden Recent work reveals a role for cyclic nucleotides as secondary signalling molecules in a variety of signal transduction pathways in plants. Evidence is accumulating that cGMP is involved in signalling during photomorphogenesis and that cADP-ribose triggers the release of sequestered Ca2+ during the response of plant cells to abscisic acid. Though more tentative, cAMP has been proposed as playing an important role in ion channel activity and cell cycle progression. Taken together, a picture emerges of differing signalling pathways, possibility interacting with each other, acting on an array of developmental processes. Addresses Department of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, Horticulture Research International, East Malling, West Malling, ME19 6BJ, UK and Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Plant Biology, 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; e-mail: [email protected] Current Opinion in Plant Biology 1998, 1:419–423 http://biomednet.com/elecref/1369526600100419 © Current Biology Ltd ISSN 1369-5266 Abbreviations ABA abscisic acid CADPR cyclic ADP-ribose EST expressed sequence tag myo-inositol 1,4,5 triphosphate IP3 NAADP nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate RyR ryanodine receptors Introduction Intracellular signalling relies on the perception of a signal at the plasmamembrane by a receptor, activating the formation of a secondary signal within the cytosol which ultimately modifies activity of an effector molecule. Such signalling has three purposes; first, it converts the primary signal into a form recognised by an effector; second, it allows signal amplication; and third, depending on the physiological status of the cell, it allows signal damping. In nonhigher-plant eucaryotic systems, pathways of intracellular signalling are well established. Although plant biologists often draw parallels with animal systems, our knowledge of secondary signalling molecules in plants is fragmentary, with the possible exception of Ca2+ ions. Often the difficulty has been a lack of knowledge of the receptors and effectors in such signalling processes. Recently a variety of novel molecular genetic approaches have been adopted to address not only whether a specific signalling molecule is active in plant cells but also the process in which such molecules may be involved. A picture is beginning to develop of several secondary signalling molecules triggering a variety of processes. Though signalling may be specific, there is potential for interaction between differing pathways, thus resulting in a complex signalling network. Hence, one is confronted increasingly by a confusing array of signalling molecules, their biosynthetic enzymes and effectors, often referred to by abbreviation. Here I describe some of the recent work that has revealed that cyclic nucleotides are involved in secondary signalling in plants and attempt to make some sense of what might be seen as the emerging alphabet soup of intracellular signalling in plants. Calcium signalling The first, and many would say the most important, ingredient of the intracellular signalling alphabet soup is calcium (Trewavas and Malhó, pp 428–433). Ca2+ ions act as a secondary signalling molecule widely in eucaryotes. In plants, Ca2+ has been implicated in intracellular signalling directly, or indirectly in the action of a large number of phytohormones with the interesting exception of ethylene [1]. What makes Ca2+ intriguing as a signalling molecule is that it is not just its presence or absence that provides signalling capability, rather the local Ca2+ concentration experienced by its effector. Following stimulation, local cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentrations can be raised many fold and slowly decay, or they can oscillate or pass in wave form [2,3,4]. These patterns of accumulation likely play a role in signalling specificity and require that internal local concentration of free Ca2+ ions be exquisitely controlled. There are three likely means of doing this. Ca2+ can be actively pumped into, or from, the cytosol by pumps located in the vacuole [5] and the plasma membranes [6]. Ca2+ may be sequestrated in organelles. Finally Ca2+ may bind a variety of proteins, for example calmodulin, changing their activity, or the protein–Ca complex might simply act as a storage form of the ion. Ultimately, changes in Ca2+ level elicit a response, for example changes in gene expression [7]. Sequestered Ca2+ can be loaded into the cytosol in response to the action of one of three secondary signalling molecules: myo-inositol 1,4,5 triphosphate (IP3), cyclic ADP-ribose (cADPR) and nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NAADP) [8,9] (Figure 1). Secondary signalling in photomorphogenesis Often, studies in secondary signalling have been hampered by lack of an appropriate, easily manipulatable, experimental system. Neuhaus, Chua and co-workers have elegantly overcome this by use of the tomato phytochrome A lacking aurea mutant for microinjection studies [10,11,12]. The concept is straightforward. Inject hypocotyl cells of dark grown seedlings with DNA containing a promoter that responds to a specific stimulus linked to a marker gene either by itself, or in the presence of other compounds. Subject the injected hypocotyls to an external stimulus and measure expression of the marker gene after two days. In ground breaking work these 420 Cell signalling and gene regulation Figure 1 NADP NAADP (+) Ca2+ Extracellular signal cADPR (+) NAD+ RyR Ca2+ Ca2+ DAG Receptor IP3 (+) Protein phosphorylation IP3R Regulation of cellular function Ca2+ Phospholipase C Ca2+ pumps/channels Current Opinion in Plant Biology authors demonstrated that phytochrome action can be mimicked by Ca2+ and cGMP and that possibly one or more heterotrimeric G proteins are involved [10]. Photomorphogenesis can be divided into three processes: those triggered by Ca2+ (expression of chlorophyll a,bbinding proteins and partial chloroplast development), those triggered by cGMP (chalcone synthase and anthocyanins) and those triggered by both (ferredoxin NADP+ oxidoreductase and full chloroplast maturation). These pathways also apparently cross regulate each other so that high levels of cGMP down regulate the Ca2+ pathways and vice versa [11]. The sequences of the target promoters responsive to cGMP and Ca2+ have been identified [12]. Significantly, the same Ca2+/cGMP pathway can also down regulate activity of the asparagine synthase promoter [13••]. More recent work, this time using dark adapted cells from a soybean suspension culture maintained in light and sucrose, has shown that the down regulation of chalcone synthase expression by Ca2+ as a phytochrome response can be reversed in UV light. The phytochrome response precedes the UV response suggesting that the apparent antagonistic action of Ca2+ in the cell is possible because the two processes are temporally separated [14•]. Secondary signalling in the ABA response A characteristic of secondary messenger signalling is that subsequent signalling events include protein phosphorylation involving the action of protein kinases and phosphatases. The abscissic acid (ABA) insensitive Arabidopsis mutants ABI1 and ABI2 are changed in a serine-threonine protein phosphatase with calcium binding domains [15,16,17]. Building on this, the effect of expression of genes encoding different Ca2+-dependent protein kinases and phosphatases has been tested directly in maize protoplasts [18]. In elegantly simple experiments, the Secondary signalling via cyclic nucleotides. Ca2+ release from intracellular stores can occur by one of three processes. Following reception of an extracellular signal, inositol triphosphate (IP3) can be released from the plasma membrane, along with diacylglycerol (DAG), by the action of phospholipase C and IP3 stimulates Ca2+ release into the cytoplasm via an IP3 receptor/channel (IP3R). cyclic ADP-ribose (cADPR) is synthesised by the action of ADP-ribosyl cyclase using oxidised nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) as a substrate. cADPR acts on the Ca2+ release channel, the ryanodine receptor (RyR). Nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NAADP), yet to be characterised as a signalling molecule in plants, can be generated from a common pyridine adenine dinucleotide redox cofactor (NADP). In addition, intracellular levels of Ca2+ can be controlled by a variety of channels and pumps. expression of an ABA responsive promoter, HVA1, linked to either the jelly fish fluorescent protein gene or the luciferase gene was tested following cotransfection with genes encoding either a palette of protein kinases or of phosphatases. Specific constitutive kinase expression can trigger expression of the HVA1 promoter in the absence of ABA or stress signals, whereas a constitutively expressed protein phosphatase 2C blocks the response. Significantly, phosphatase mutants act in a dominant manner to inhibit expression, consistant with the dominant ABI1/2 phenotype. This might be explained by the mutant protein titrating out its molecular partners and allows molecular analysis of the interactions of the phosphatase with partner proteins [19••]. It has been known for some time that IP3 mobilises Ca2+ from plant cell vacuoles [20] and more recently it has been shown that, as in animals, cADPR releases sequestered Ca2+ via channels co-localising with the IP3 gated channels [21]. Pharmaceutical analysis supports the expectation that cADPR activated Ca2+ release is mediated by the activation of ryanodine sensitive Ca2+ channels (ryanodine receptors [RyR]) [22]. Suspicion that cADPR might be involved in the ABA response [23] has been convincingly confirmed by recent work from the Chua laboratory, once again using hypocotyl microinjection [24••]. In this case, the target promoters were a desiccation sensitive promoter (rd29A) and a promoter from a cold inducible gene (kin2). Expression from both promoters is induced by ABA treatment as well as the injection of either Ca2+ and cADPR in the absence of ABA. Injection of ADP-ribosyl cyclase, the enzyme responsible for cADPR formation from NAD+, also triggers expression of both promoters in the absence of ABA. The cation chelator EGTA blocks ABA induced expression as well as that induced by Ca2+, ADP-ribosyl cyclase and cADPR suggesting that Ca2+ acts downstream The alphabet soup of plant intracellular signalling: enter cyclic nucleotides Walden of cADPR in the signalling pathway. This notion is supported by the finding that injection of 8NH2–cADPR, a competitive inhibitor of cADPR, blocked induction by ABA, the cyclase, cADPR, but not Ca2+. In addition, injection of NADase (removing the substrate for cADPR synthesis) blocks ABA induction. In the light of the work with maize protoplasts, it might not be a surprise that the phosphatase inhibitor okadaic acid activates gene expression from the ABA responsive promoters, whereas the kinase inhibitor K252a blocks it. The versatility of the microinjection system, however, is demonstrated by finding that okadaic acid induced expression is blocked by either EGTA, or 8NH2–cADPR placing the phosphatase requirement upstream of cADPR production and Ca2+ release. On the other hand, K252a blocks ABA independent expression induced by okadaic acid, cADPR and Ca2+ placing the required kinase activity downstream of Ca2+ release. The proposition that cADPR triggered Ca2+ release plays a role in ABA induction of gene expression gains further support using Arabidopsis transformed with the kin2 promoter linked to luciferase. Here the time course of gene expression correlates with increases in cADPR levels. Where is the specificity of the Ca2+ response? Ca2+ also triggered photomorphogenesis in the same experimental system. Does triggering of the cab (chlorophyll a/b binding protein) promoter in the phyA (phytochrome A) system share the same signalling pathway as the ABA induction of rd29A and kin2 promoters? Apparently not— in important control experiments, both rd29A and kin2 promoters were not induced by phyA. Conversely, the cab promoter is not induced by cADPR. Tissue specific characteristics, or cellular competance has been argued as playing a role in specificity of Ca2+ signalling [25]; however, tissue specificity is hard to argue in this case. One wonders if specificity might be provided by the mode of Ca2+ release. With this in mind, co-injection of IP3 also activates ABA inducible genes in the absence of ABA but not the expression of the cab promoter. The IP3 specific blocker heparin does not block ABA induced gene expression suggesting that IP3 might be involved in a secondary ABA response [24]. cADPR as a signalling molecule may be widely distributed throughout the plant kingdom. It has been described as oscillating in levels in the unicellular Euglena during the cell cycle with maximal levels being observed immediately before cell division [26]. cAMP: the outsider of plant secondary signalling Compared with other secondary signalling molecules, cAMP has had a troubled history in plant biology. Many workers have attempted to demonstrate a role for cAMP in plants, however, results have not been unequivocal, largely because of the apparently low levels of cAMP in plants which may border on the artifactual [27,28]. 421 Using whole cell patch clamping of bean mesophyll protoplasts it has been found that cAMP can increase outward K+ current in a dose dependent manner. This effect is mimicked by the catalytic subunit of a mammalian protein kinase A (PKA) in the absence of cAMP [29]. More recently, excitement was stirred by a report of the isolation of a gene from tobacco with limited similarity to adenyl cyclase from S. pombe whose expression was able to activate protoplast division and it was suggested that cAMP might play a role in auxin triggered cell division [30]. The protoplast assay used in this case is currently under review, however, and until independently confirmed this report must be treated with caution. More significant, however, may be the recent finding that cAMP levels may oscillate in suspension cells during the cell cycle [31]. Here, using a tobacco suspension cell system that can be synchronised with relative ease, it was shown that there are transient peaks of cAMP levels in S and G1 phases of the cell cycle. This suggests a role for cAMP in cell cycle progression, though, as it stands, the data is only correlative. It would be interesting to check the effect of cAMP of the activity of components of cell cycle progression or their expression. A related observation might be relevant; expression of the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S RNA promoter in yeast is dependent on cAMP [32]. A general transcription factor likely to bind to a portion of the CaMV 35S RNA promoter contains a region similar to the mammalian cAMP responsive element binding (CREB) factor [33]. Expression of the 35S RNA promoter in this tobacco cell line correlates with the changes of cAMP levels reported [34]. A coincidence? Possibly, though one that could be tested relatively simply. Secondary signalling in the post Gutenburg era Advances in plant expressed sequence tag (EST) and genomic DNA sequencing raises the possibility that genes encoding elements of signalling pathways might be identified by sequence similarity with genes from other systems before the pathway itself has been defined either biochemically, or by molecular genetics in plants. A foretaste is provided by a quick scan of the TIGR Arabidopsis gene index [35] which reveals four hits when searched for RyR, 251 with protein kinase A and 217 with protein kinase C. Naturally, DNA sequence alone does not suffice to implicate a specific gene product in a specific signalling pathway, and there is a need to sort out which gene product may be involved in which pathway. Nevertheless, computer searches can provide valuable pointers as demonstrated by the recent cloning of a gene encoding a seven membrane span receptor-like protein [36••,37]. In this case PCR was used to isolate the GCR1 gene encoding a seven membrane span receptor-like protein with greatest similarity to CAR1, the Dictyostelium cAMP receptor. Southern analysis reveals GCR1 to be a single copy gene in Arabidopsis. Arabidopsis transformants expressing antisense GCR1 displayed the dainty phenotype: reduced cotyledon and leaf expansion as well as the production of a 422 Cell signalling and gene regulation single flowering stem at the five–eight leaf stage [36••]. Roots of dainty seedlings have reduced sensitivity to higher levels of cytokinins compared with plants transformed with the vector lacking the GCR1 antisense gene. The dainty phenotype is reminiscent of the Arabidopsis cytokinin resistant mutant cyr1 [38], though does not appear to be allelic to it. The authors suggest GCR1 is involved in cytokinin signalling. The question of course is how direct, or indirect, this involvement might be. Previously, CKI1 has been isolated by activation T-DNA tagging followed by selection for calli developing in a cytokinin related manner even though cytokinin was absent from the culture media [39]. CKI1 encodes a two component receptor kinase-like protein. Clearly, it will be important to check whether either CKI1, or GCR1 acts as a cytokinin receptor. In the meantime one wonders whether GCR1, true to it’s similarity to CAR1, is actually a cAMP receptor? This would raise the intriguing possibility of cAMP acting in paracrine signalling in plants as in Dictostelium. Conclusions Cyclic nucleotides are now established as secondary signalling molecules in plants with cGMP playing a role in photomorphogenesis and cADPR in ABA signalling. cAMP remains the outsider of plant biology, but biochemical evidence suggests a role in ion channel function and cell cycle progression. Most probably it is only a matter of time until NAADP is added to this list. Ca2+ release into the cytosol appears to be an integral part of signalling in a number of developmental processes; this raises a question of specificity of action. The requirement for specificity has been elegantly demonstrated in the experiments involving microinjection where differing signals apparently result in Ca2+ release, which in turn culminates in a differential response in the same cell type. Understanding the mechanism of this differential response is one of the greatest challenges arising from this work. Probably it involves mechanism of release, the mode of intracellular local Ca2+ accumulation (i.e. single burst, wave form or oscillation) as well as subcellular compartmentation. The work described here provides important pieces of the puzzle of signal transduction in plant cells, yet there are still important gaps in our knowledge. Many vital components of these signalling pathways remain to be characterised — these include the receptors involved at one end of the signalling pathway and the effectors at the other end. It may be significant that mutational analysis has yet to provide a means of isolating these, particularly the receptors, and the question arises as to whether mutational screens have been designed in an appropriate manner to isolate genes, or whether functional redundancy is involved. As shown by the characterisation of GCR1, genomic and EST sequencing are likely to provide us with genes encoding candidates for components of signalling pathways, but the trick will be to link these genetically and biochemically to a particular signalling process. One of the refreshing aspects of recent work is that novel experimental systems, for example protoplasts and the technique of micro-inoculation, have been used successfully to dissect secondary signalling. Often, certainly in the case of phytohormone signalling, experimental systems which may be generally difficult to manipulate have been adopted. On the face of it these new experimental approaches appear robust and amenable to manipulation though the results obtained with them need to extrapolated to other, more general systems of studying phytohormone responses. Indeed, it does not take a lot of imagination to suspect that, with appropriate promoter constructs, these systems could be effectively used to study signalling pathways used by other phytohormones of which we know so little, such as auxin and cytokinin. The components of the intracellular soup of secondary signalling that are currently emerging allow for an interaction between differing pathways, for example the Ca2+ and cGMP pathways involved in photomorphogenesis. In considering that in animal systems such pathways are involved in a variety of diverse processes such as apoptosis and response to free radicals such as NO [8] it can be expected that in the near future more examples of the spectrum of events in the plant cell in which cyclic nucleotides are involved will emerge. Acknowledgements Thanks to members of the Walden lab, Max-Planck Institut fur Zuchtungforschung Cologne, particularly Carla Schommer, Tine Rausch and Elke Bongartz for their support. References and recommended reading Papers of particular interest, published within the annual period of review, have been highlighted as: • of special interest •• of outstanding interest 1. Bethke PC, Gilroy S, Jones RL: Calcium and plant hormone action. In Plant Hormones. Edited by Davies PJ. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic; 298-317. 2. McAinsh MR, Webb AAR, Taylor JE, Hetherington A: Stimulus induced oscillations in guard cell free calcium. Plant Cell 1995 7:1207-1219. 3. Ehrhardt DW, Wais R, Long SR: Stimulus induced oscillations in guard cell cytosolic free calcium. Cell 1996 85:673-681. 4. Franklin-Tong VE, Droback BK, Allan AC, Watkins PAC, Trewavas AJ: Growth of pollen tubes of Papaver rhoeas is regulated by a slow moving calcium wave propagated by inositol 1,4,5-triphosphate. Plant Cell 1996 8:1305-1321. 5. Allen GJ, Sanders D: Two voltage-gated, calcium release channels co-reside in the vacuolar membrane of broad bean guard cells. Plant Cell 1995 6:685-694. 6. Dainese P, James P, Baldon B, Carafoli E: Subcellular and tissue distribution, partial purification and sequencing of calmodulin stimulated Ca2+-transporting ATPases from Barley Hordeum vulgare (L.) and tobacco Nicotiana tabacum. Eur J Biochem 1997 244:31-38. 7. Hardingham GE, Chawla S, Johnson CM, Bading H: Distinct functions of nuclear and cytoplasmic calcium in control of gene expression. Nature 1997 385:260-265. 8. Hancock JT: Cell Signalling 1997, Harlow, Essex; Longman. 9. Dousa TP, Chini EN, Beers KW: Adenine nucleotide diphosphates: emerging second messengers acting via intracellular Ca2++ release. Am J Physiol 1996 40:1007-1024. The alphabet soup of plant intracellular signalling: enter cyclic nucleotides Walden 10. Bowler C, Neuhaus G, Yamagata H, Chua N-H: Cyclic GMP and calcium mediated phytochrome phototransduction. Cell 1994, 77:73-81. 11. Bowler C, Yamagata H, Neuhaus G, Chua N-H: Phytochrome signal transduction pathways are regulated by reciprocal control mechanisms. Genes Dev 1994, 8:73-81. 12. Wu Y, Hiratsuka K, Neuhaus G, Chua N-H: Calcium and cGMP target distinct phytochrome responsive elements. Plant J 1996, 10:1149-1154. 13. Neuhaus G, Bowler C, Hirasuka K, Yamagata H, Chua N-H: •• Phytochrome regulated repression of gene expression requires calcium and cGMP EMBO J 1997, 16:2554-2564. In addition to up regulating gene expression the Ca2+/cGMP system, it is shown that this system can down regulate gene expression. This paper is also important because loss and gain of function experiments identify a 17 basepair cis element within the promoter of the asparagine synthase gene necessary and sufficient for this down regulation. This element contains a sequence motif present in the phytochrome A promoter: TGGG. 14. Frohnmeyer H, Bowler C, Zhu J-K, Yamagata H, Schäfer E, Chua N-H: • Different roles for calcium and calmodulin in phytochrome- and UV-regulated expression of chalcone synthase. Plant J 1998, 13:763-772. Important in that this work suggests that differential responses to changes in Ca levels may be specified by temporal changes in Ca flux. 15. Leung J, Bouvier-Durand M, Morris P-C, Guerrier D, Chefdor F, Giraudat J: Arabidopsis ABA response gene ABI1: features of a calcium-modulated protein phosphatase. Science 1994, 264:1448-1452. 16. Meyer K, Leube MP, Grill E: A protein phosphatase 2C involved in ABA signal transduction in Arabidopsis thaliana. Science 1994, 264:1452-1455. 17. Leung J, Merlot S, Giraudat J: The Arabidopsis ABSCISSIC ACID INSENSITIVE 2 (ABI2) and ABI1 genes encode homologous protein phosphatase 2C involved in abscissic acid signal transduction. Plant Cell 9:759-771. 423 24. Wu Y, Kuzma J, Marechal E, Graeff R, Lee HC, Foster R, Chua N-H: •• Abscissic acid signalling through cyclic ADPribose in plants. Science 1997, 278:2126-2130. Once again the elegant simplicity of microinjection throws light on a signalling pathway, this time that triggered by ABA. The microinjection experiments are backed up using Arabidopsis engineered to contain an ABA-responsive marker construct and it is shown that increases in cADPR mimic expression of the marker gene. 25. McAinsh MR, Hetherington AM: Encoding specificity in Ca2+ signalling systems. Trends Plant Sci 1998, 3:32-36. 26. Masuda W, Takenaka S, Inageda K, Nishina K, Takahashi K, Katada T, Tsuyama S, Inui H, Miyatake K, Nakano Y. Oscillation of ADP ribosyl cyclase activity and function of cADP ribose in a unicellular organism, Euglena gracilis. FEBS Letts 1997, 405:104-106. 27. Spiteri A, Viratelle OM, Raymond P, Rancillac M, Labousse J, Pradet A: Artifactual origins of cyclic AMP in higher plant tissues. Plant Physiol 1989, 91:624-628. 28. Assmann S: Cyclic AMP as a second messenger in higher plants: status and future prospects Plant Physiol 1995, 108:885-889. 29. Li W, Luan S, Schreiber SL, Assmann SM: Cyclic AMP stimulates K+ channel activity in mesophyll cells of Vicia faba L. Plant Physiol 1994, 106:957-961. 30. Ichikawa T, Suzuki Y, Czaja I, Schommer C, Lessnick A, Schell J, Walden R: Identification and role of adenyl cyclase in auxin signalling in higher plants. Nature 1997, 390:698-701. 31. Ehsan H, Reichheld J-P, Roef L, Witters E, Lardon F, Bockstaele DV, Van Montagu M, Inze D, Van Onckelon H: Effect of indomethanacin on cell cycle dependent cyclic AMP fluxes in tobacco BY-2 cells. FEBS Letts 1998, 422:165-169. 32. Rüth J, Hirt H, Schweyen RJ: The cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter is regulated by cAMP in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Mol Gen Genet 1992, 235:365-372. 33. Katagiri F, Lam E, Chua N-H: Two tobacco DNA-binding proteins with homology to the nuclear factor CREB. Nature 1989, 340:727-730. 18. Sheen J: Ca2+-dependent protein kinases and stress signal transduction in plants. Science 1996, 274:1900-1902. 34. Nagata T, Okada K, Kawazu T, Takebe I: Cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter directs S phase specific expression in plant cells. Mol Gen Genet 1987, 207:242-244. 19. Sheen J: Mutation analysis of protein phosphatase 2C involved in •• abscissic acid signal transduction in higher plants. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1998, 95:975-980. In an elegant demonstration of the power of the protoplast system, a molecular analysis is used to assay the functional requirements of the protein phosphatase 2C in the ABA response leading to gene expression. 35. The Institute for Genome Research Arapidopsis Gene index on the World Wide Web URL: http://www.tigr.org/tdb/agi/index.html. 20. Alexandre J, Lassalles JP, Kado RT: Opening of Ca2+ channels in isolated red beet root vacuole membrane by inositol 1,4,5triphosphate. Nature 1990, 343:567-570. 21 Allen GJ, Muir SR, Sanders D: Release of Ca2+ from individual plant vacuoles by both InsP3 and cyclic ADP ribose. Science 1996, 268:735-737. 36. Plakidou-Dymock S, Dymock D, Hooley R: A higher plant seven •• membrane receptor that influences sensitivity to cytokinins. Current Biol 1998, 8:315-324. PCR is used to isolate GCR1 from Arabidopsis, a seven membrane receptorlike gene with greatest similarity to CAR1 a cAMP receptor of Dictyostelium. The gene is one of a receptor-like gene family in Arabidopsis. Antisense expression of GCR1 results in a decreased sensitivity to cytokinins. 37. Josefsson LG, Rask L: Cloning of a putative G-protein coupled receptor from Arabidopsis thaliana. Eur J Biochem 1997, 249:415420. 22. Muir SR, Sanders D: Pharmacology of Ca2+ release from red beet microsomes suggests the presence of ryanodine receptor homologs in higher plants. FEBS Letts 1996, 395:39-42. 38. Deikman J, Ulrich M: A novel cytokinin-resistant mutant of Arabidopsis with abbreviated shoot development. Planta 1995, 195:440-449. 23. Leckie CP, Mcainsh MP, Hetherington AR: cADPR and stomatal closure Plant Physiol 1997, 114:272. 39. Kakimoto T: CKI1, a histidine kinase homolog implicated in cytokinin signal transduction. Science 1996, 274:982-985.