By Douglas Fox
Can the bend of a banana give us insight into cancer? What does the shape of a rice grain have to do with infertility? The proteins that give plants their shape and structure are also involved in human disease. A team led by researchers at the University of California, Davis, has mapped out the structure of a key player, augmin, in exhaustive detail.
“This work shows how plants and animals are similar,” said Jawdat Al-Bassam, associate professor of molecular and cellular biology at UC Davis. “It could help answer some fundamental questions not just about plants, but also humans.”
Augmin is a protein complex that binds to microtubules, the cell’s internal skeleton, aiding in the formation of branched microtubules and playing a key role in cell division.
Augmin defects can cause infertility in humans. In addition, “some augmin subunits are highly expressed in human cancer cells,” said Bo Liu, a professor of plant biology who collaborated with Al-Bassam on the new study. Understanding its structure could yield both new medical treatments and new strategies for breeding higher-quality rice and cotton crops.
Source : ucdavis.edu