Plant Root Hair Protein P4Hs (IMAGE)
Caption
Roots in plants form specialized long cells known as root hairs that take nutrients and water from soil (upper panel left). In this issue of Science Velasquez et al. have found a protein called prolyl 4-hydroxylases (P4Hs) that determines how much this root's hairs can grow. They have obtained plants with extra long root hairs and also with shorter ones by changing the expression of P4Hs (upper panel centre and right). The authors also have shown that P4Hs are expressed in root hairs by tagging P4H with the green fluorescent protein (GFP). In the same way, at subcellular levels P4Hs localizes in the endoplasmatic reticulum (ER) and Golgi apparatus. P4Hs are important for plant cells because they define the glycosylation sites (sites where sugars can be added on a protein) on a certain cell wall proteins. Finally, a molecular representation a P4H together with its substrate, a cell wall proteins (yellow) is shown (lower panel right).
Credit
Jose M. Estevez, Ph.D., CONICET
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