Remorins form a novel family of coiled coil-forming oligomeric and filamentous proteins associated with apical, vascular and embryonic tissues in plants

Plant Mol Biol. 2004 Jul;55(4):579-94. doi: 10.1007/s11103-004-1520-4.

Abstract

Remorins form a superfamily of plant-specific plasma membrane/lipid-raft-associated proteins of unknown structure and function. Using specific antibodies, we localized tomato remorin 1 to apical tissues, leaf primordia and vascular traces. The deduced remorin protein sequence contains a predicted coiled coil-domain, suggesting its participation in protein-protein interactions. Circular dichroism revealed that recombinant potato remorin contains an alpha-helical region that forms a functional coiled-coil domain. Electron microscopy of purified preparations of four different recombinant remorins, one from potato, two divergent isologs from tomato, and one from Arabidopsis thaliana , demonstrated that the proteins form highly similar filamentous structures. The diameters of the negatively-stained filaments ranged from 4.6-7.4 nm for potato remorin 1, 4.3-6.2 nm for tomato remorin 1, 5.7-7.5 nm for tomato remorin 2, and 5.7-8.0 nm for Arabidopsis Dbp. Highly polymerized remorin 1 was detected in glutaraldehyde-crosslinked tomato plasma membrane preparations and a population of the protein was immunolocalized in tomato root tips to structures associated with discrete regions of the plasma membrane.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Carrier Proteins / analysis*
  • Carrier Proteins / genetics
  • Carrier Proteins / ultrastructure
  • Circular Dichroism
  • Immunoblotting
  • Membrane Proteins / analysis
  • Membrane Proteins / genetics
  • Meristem / chemistry*
  • Meristem / genetics
  • Microscopy, Confocal
  • Microscopy, Electron
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Molecular Weight
  • Oligopeptides / analysis
  • Oligopeptides / genetics
  • Phosphoproteins / analysis*
  • Phosphoproteins / genetics
  • Phosphoproteins / ultrastructure
  • Plant Proteins / analysis*
  • Plant Proteins / genetics
  • Plant Proteins / ultrastructure
  • Plant Roots / chemistry
  • Plant Roots / genetics
  • Plant Shoots / chemistry
  • Plant Shoots / genetics
  • Plants / chemistry*
  • Plants / embryology
  • Plants / genetics
  • Recombinant Proteins / analysis
  • Solanum lycopersicum / chemistry
  • Solanum lycopersicum / genetics
  • Solanum tuberosum / chemistry
  • Solanum tuberosum / genetics

Substances

  • Carrier Proteins
  • Membrane Proteins
  • Oligopeptides
  • Phosphoproteins
  • Plant Proteins
  • Recombinant Proteins
  • remorin