Analysis of the Arabidopsis Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Families: Organ Specificity and Transcriptional Regulation upon Water Stresses

MAPK cascades and major abiotic stresses

“…In transient expression assays, Hua et al (2006) found that constitutively active forms of Arabidopsis MPK and MKK members are able to activate the promoter of RD29, a dehydration-responsive gene, suggesting that MAP kinase cascades are involved in drought signaling. The analysis of the transcriptional regulation of 44 MAP kinases under different abiotic stresses demonstrated that Arabidopsis MPK2, MPK3, MPK4, MPK5, MPK12 and MAPKKK4 are induced by water stress (Moustafa et al 2008).…”

“…The expression of different active forms of the MKK and MPK gene family members results in the activation of RD29A and RD29B gene promoters (Hua et al 2006), suggesting that MAP kinases could be upstream activators of the stress marker genes under salinity conditions. Additionally, five MPKs (MPK9, MPK10, MPK11, MPK17 and MPK18), two MKKs (MKK7 and MKK9) and four MEKKs (MEKK3, MEKK5, MEKK6 and MEKK7) were induced by 200 mM sodium chloride (NaCl) (Moustafa et al 2008). Arabidopsis transgenic plants that overexpress the maize MAP kinase ZmSIMK1 showed an enhanced tolerance to high-salinity stress (Gu et al 2010).…”

“…The induction by osmotic stress of the Arabidopsis MPK17 and its homolog in maize ZmMPK17 (Pan et al 2012) suggests that MPK17 and its ortholog could be good candidates for further functional characterizations and involvement in abiotic stress adaptation. Interestingly, under hypoosmotic stress, the Arabidopsis MPK20 presents an induction pattern similar to that of proline dehydrogenase (ProDH) (Moustafa et al 2008), suggesting that MPK20 and ProDH may interact with each other and be part of functional hypoosmotic stress-signaling pathway.…”

“…Table 1 summarizes a list of MAP kinase genes involved in the responses to multiple abiotic stresses in different plant species, based on changes in transcriptional regulation and/or enzymatic activities. Cold, salinity, dehydration Mizoguchi et al (1996), Moustafa et al (2008), Teige et al (2004) AtMPK4 AtMPK20 Table 1, an inferred MAP kinase cascade can be designed (Fig. 1) and tested in future research for the assessment of plant tolerance to abiotic stresses.…”

Cloning, expression, purification, crystallization and preliminary crystallographic analysis of the kinase domain of AtMAP4Kalpha2 fromArabidopsis thaliana

“…It is highly expressed in seedlings, shoots, stems and roots (Moustafa et al, 2008;Menges et al, 2008). According to STRING prediction (Szklarczyk et al, 2011), AtMAP4Kalpha2 possesses three functional partners: AtMAP4Kalpha1 (putative nuclear localization signal protein), LOV (putative disease resistance protein RPP8-like protein 1; Corchnoy et al, 2003;Swartz et al, 2001;Salomon et al, 2000) and RPT2 (a signal transducer of the phototropic response and photoinduced movements; Motchoulski & Liscum, 1999).…”