Burlingame and Gross labs shed light on braking mechanisms in cellular signaling

How do cells that must respond rapidly and robustly to changes in the environment subsequently modulate that response so such elevated activity doesn’t prove harmful? Put another way: How do cells put the brakes on their response to external signaling in order to re-stabilize themselves?

The laboratories of School faculty members Al Burlingame, PhD, and John Gross, PhD, in collaboration with researchers at UC Berkeley, the Plant Gene Expression Center, and the Carnegie Institution for Science, have identified a novel bimolecular mechanism by which a plant often used as an experimental model, Arabidopsis, combines acceleration and restraint as its seedlings emerge from underground darkness into sunlight.

The researchers’ discovery, reported in the June 6, 2014 issue of Science, has potential implications ranging from agricultural use to cancer research. Burlingame and Gross are faculty members in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Co-lead author Shou-Ling Xu, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the department’s mass spectrometry facility.

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• MAD: Scientists Shed Light on Braking Mechanisms in Cellular Signaling – UCSF

• A mutually assured destruction mechanism attenuates light signaling in Arabidopsis – Science