Protein Synthesis Initiation Factors: Phosphorylation and Regulation

The initiation of the synthesis of proteins is a fundamental process shared by all living organisms. Each organism has both shared and unique mechanisms for regulation of this vital process. Higher plants provide for a major amount of fixation of carbon from the environment and turn this carbon into food and fuel sources for our use. However, we have very little understanding of how plants regulate the synthesis of the proteins necessary for these metabolic processes. The research carried out during the grant period sought to address some of these unknowns in the regulation of protein synthesis initiation. Our first goal was to determine if phosphorylation plays a significant role in plant initiation of protein synthesis. The role of phosphorylation, although well documented in mammalian protein synthesis regulation, is not well studied in plants. We showed that several of the factors necessary for the initiation of protein synthesis were targets of plant casein kinase and showed differential phosphorylation by the plant specific isoforms of this kinase. In addition, we identified and confirmed the phosphorylation sites in five of the plant initiation factors. Further, we showed that phosphorylation of one of these factors, eIF5, affected the ability of the factor to participate in the initiation process. Our second goal was to develop a method to make initiation factor 3 (eIF3) using recombinant methods. To date, we successfully cloned and expressed 13/13 subunits of wheat eIF3 in E. coli using de novo gene construction methods. The final step in this process is to place the subunits into three different plasmid operons for co-expression. Successful completion of expression of eIF3 will be an invaluable tool to the plant translation community