Skip to content
University of Maryland LibrariesDigital Repository at the University of Maryland
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Upstream Events In Ethylene Signal Transduction In Arabidopsis

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    umi-umd-2003.pdf (2.426Mb)
    No. of downloads: 1471

    Date
    2004-11-23
    Author
    Shockey, Jason Alan
    Advisor
    Chang, Caren
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Ethylene gas has profound effects on the growth and development of higher plants. The understanding of how plants can sense this gas, and react in the appropriate manner is important for both agricultural purposes as well as the basic understanding of plant biology. While many components of this signaling pathway have been identified using classical genetics, we have little understanding of how these components work together. My work has focused on the understanding of early events in ethylene signal transduction. The interaction between the ETR1 ethylene receptor and the CTR1 Raf-like kinase was the first clue that the ethylene signaling pathway diverged from that of the yeast HOG1 osmo-sensing pathway. In this thesis, I examined the functional relevance of this interaction in the regulation of CTR1's activity. My work suggests that although CTR1 demonstrates the novel interaction with two-component receptors, the biochemical regulation of CTR1 may be similar to that of Raf1. Recent studies have suggested that histidine kinase activity of ETR1 may not play a major role in ethylene signal transduction, despite the remarkable degree of sequence conservation with functional histidine kinases from bacteria and yeast. In order to better understand the role of this highly conserved domain, either in ethylene signaling or other possible functions, I utilized biochemical assays, protein interaction studies and transgenic plants. My work indicates that phospho-relay plays no observable role in most ethylene responses, but plays an important role in recovery from ethylene treatment. Important members of this signaling system may yet be unidentified. A gene previously identified in the Chang lab, D2, was shown to have a probable role as a scaffolding protein in ethylene signaling using multiple reverse genetic techniques. This gene is unique to plants and cyanobacteria, as is the ethylene binding fold suggesting the two may have evolved together. The emerging paradigm of the ethylene signaling system reveals the pathway to be much more complex than originally thought.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1903/2043
    Collections
    • Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics Theses and Dissertations
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility
     

     

    Browse

    All of DRUMCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister
    Pages
    About DRUMAbout Download Statistics

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility