Plant Translational Machinery

Discovery and characterization of conserved binding of eIF4E 1 (CBE1), a eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E–binding plant protein

“…Activation of mTOR leads to phosphorylation of 4E-BPs, reducing their affinity for eIF4E and making the protein available for binding by eIF4G, increasing levels of translation initiation (7). To date, there is no evidence of a similar 4E-BP-like mechanism in regulation of plant translation (8).…”

“…The exact mechanisms by which translation initiation is regulated by eIF4F and/or eIFiso4F in plants remain unclear by comparison to mammals and fungi. As no proteins similar to 4E-BP have been identified, and binding affinity between eIF4E/eIF4G and eIFiso4E/eIFiso4G is significantly higher than other eukaryotic systems (15), a mechanism of global control of translation initiation by cap-binding protein sequestration has not yet been discovered in plants (8). Arabidopsis thaliana lipoxygenase 2 (LOX2) has been shown to interact with eIFiso4E in vitro (16) and A. thaliana basic transcription factor 3 (BTF3) shows interaction with eIFiso4E in yeast two-hybrid assays (17).…”