Nature Plants reveals the molecular mechanisms by which plants select partners for different MYB and bHLH transcription factors to form complexes

On August 22, 2022, the School of Life Sciences of Fudan University and the State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering Dong Aiwu, Gan Jianhua and Huang Jianxun collaborated to publish a research paper entitled "Structural insights into partner selection for MYB and bHLH transcription factor complexes" online in nature Plants

The MYB and bHLH transcription factor families are very large, with more than 300 MYB family transcription factors and more than 100 bHLH family transcription factors present in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana

In order to analyze the molecular mechanisms of interaction and companion selection of different MYB-bHLH complexes, Aiwu Dong's team analyzed the crystal structures of three MYB-bHLH complexes, WER-EGL3, CPC-EGL3 and MYB29-MYC3, revealing two MYB-bHLH interaction patterns

Illustration: Two binding modes and independent evolution of MYB and bHLH transcription factors