Recognition of a PP2C Interaction Motif in Several Plant Protein Kinases

Protein phosphatase 2Cs (PP2Cs) constitute a major class of phosphatases in plants. PP2Cs play important roles in many signaling pathways by countering the action of specific protein kinases. In addition to their role in several environmental stress-related signal transduction pathways, they are also involved in plant metabolism. Protein phosphatases often physically associate with their protein kinase counterparts. One approach to understanding PP2C function is to identify their interacting protein kinases. We describe a yeast two-hybrid assay system used in our lab to determine the interaction between members of the PP2C family and protein kinases in the SOS2 family. This chapter and the cited articles describing related work might be of help in discovering interactions between other protein phosphatases and kinases.