post-translational-modification
Post-translational modifications (PTMs) are chemical changes made to proteins after they are synthesized, altering their activity, stability, localization, or interactions without changing the underlying gene sequence. In plants, PTMs such as phosphorylation, ubiquitination, and SUMOylation act as rapid molecular switches that allow cells to respond dynamically to environmental signals like light, drought, and pathogen attack. Understanding PTMs in plant biology is key to unraveling how plants fine-tune growth, development, and stress responses at the protein level.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-04-27
Plants use special surface proteins called receptor-like kinases (RLKs) to sense and respond to their environment. This review reveals how these proteins are controlled through multiple chemical tagging and cutting mechanisms, and how fragments of these proteins can travel to different parts of the cell to carry out entirely new functions — with implications for engineering more resilient crops.
RLKs are regulated by at least 7 distinct types of chemical modification, including phosphorylation, ubiquitination, glycosylation, lipid anchoring, SUMOylation, and pathogen-triggered acetylation and uridylylation.
Multiple RLKs undergo proteolytic cleavage that releases a truncated kinase fragment, which then migrates to specific subcellular compartments to carry out non-canonical signaling functions.
These mobile kinase modules spatially and temporally expand RLK signaling beyond the cell surface, representing a broader signaling repertoire than previously recognized.