MKKK20 works as an upstream triple-kinase of MKK3-MPK6-MYC2 module in Arabidopsis seedling development

Madhusmita Ojha; Deepanjali Verma; Nibedita Chakraborty; Abhideep Pal; Prakash Kumar Bhagat; Anshuman Singh; Neetu Verma; Alok Krishna Sinha; Sudip Chattopadhyay

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106049

MKKK20 works as an upstream triple-kinase of MKK3-MPK6-MYC2 module in Arabidopsis seedling development

iScience. 2023 Jan 25;26(2):106049. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106049. eCollection 2023 Feb 17.

Authors

Madhusmita Ojha¹, Deepanjali Verma², Nibedita Chakraborty¹, Abhideep Pal¹, Prakash Kumar Bhagat², Anshuman Singh¹, Neetu Verma², Alok Krishna Sinha², Sudip Chattopadhyay¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology, Durgapur 713209, India.
² National Institute of Plant Genome Research, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi 110067, India.

Abstract

The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade is involved in several signal transduction processes in eukaryotes. Here, we report a mechanistic function of MAP kinase kinase kinase 20 (MKKK20) in light signal transduction pathways. We show that MKKK20 acts as a negative regulator of photomorphogenic growth at various wavelengths of light. MKKK20 not only regulates the expression of light signaling pathway regulatory genes but also gets regulated by the same pathway genes. The atmyc2 mkkk20 double mutant analysis shows that MYC2 works downstream to MKKK20 in the regulation of photomorphogenic growth. MYC2 directly binds to the promoter of MKKK20 to modulate its expression. The protein-protein interaction study indicates that MKKK20 physically interacts with MYC2, and this interaction likely suppresses the MYC2-mediated promotion of MKKK20 expression. Further, the protein phosphorylation studies demonstrate that MKKK20 works as the upstream kinase of MKK3-MPK6-MYC2 module in photomorphogenesis.

Keywords: Molecular biology; Plant development; Plant physiology.