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Food Security - National Agricultural Biotechnology Council ...

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activation in plants, the bacterial response regulator PhoB translocates to the nucleus andactivates transcription. Also, we previously described a plant visual response system, thede-greening circuit, a threshold sensitive reporter system that produces a visual responsewhich is remotely detectable and quantifiable.Methodology/Principal Findings: We describe assembly and function of a complete syntheticsignal transduction pathway in plants that links input from computationally re-designedPBPs to a visual response. To sense extracellular ligands, we targeted the computationalre-designed PBPs to the apoplast. PBPs bind the ligand and develop affinity for theextracellular domain of a chemotactic protein, Trg. We experimentally developed Trg fusionsproteins, which bind the ligand-PBP complex, and activate intracellular PhoR, theHK cognate of PhoB. We then adapted Trg-PhoR fusions for function in plants showingthat in the presence of an external ligand PhoB translocates to the nucleus and activatestranscription. We linked this input to the de-greening circuit creating a detector plant.Conclusions/Significance: Our system is modular and PBPs can theoretically be designed tobind most small molecules. Hence our system, with improvements, may allow plants toserve as a simple and inexpensive means to monitor human surroundings for substancessuch as pollutants, explosives, or chemical agents.Medford85

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