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Volume 26, No 5, May 2016

ISSN: 1001-0602 
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018 
impact factor 17.848* 
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)

Volume 26 Issue 5, May 2016: 543-555   |  Open Access

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Crystal structure of PXY-TDIF complex reveals a conserved recognition mechanism among CLE peptide-receptor pairs

Heqiao Zhang1,*, Xiaoya Lin2,*, Zhifu Han1, Li-Jia Qu2 and Jijie Chai1

1Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Protein Science, Center for Structural Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua-Peking Joint Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, School of Life Sciences, Peking-Tsinghua Joint Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Correspondence: Jijie Chai, Tel: +86-10-62797718 E-mail: chaijj@tsinghua.edu.cn; Li-Jia Qu, Tel: +86-10-62797718 (qulj@pku.edu.cn)

Plants can achieve amazing lifespans because of their continuous and repetitive formation of new organs by stem cells present within meristems. The balance between proliferation and differentiation of meristem cells is largely regulated by the CLAVATA3/ENDOSPERM SURROUNDING REGION (CLE) peptide hormones. One of the well-characterized CLE peptides, CLE41/TDIF (tracheary elements differentiation inhibitory factor), functions to suppress tracheary element differentiation and promote procambial cell proliferation, playing important roles in vascular development and wood formation. The recognition mechanisms of TDIF or other CLE peptides by their respective receptors, however, remain largely elusive. Here we report the crystal structure of TDIF in complex with its receptor PXY, a leucine-rich repeat receptor kinase (LRR-RK). Our structure reveals that TDIF mainly adopts an “Ω”-like conformation binding to the inner surface of the LRR domain of PXY. Interaction between TDIF and PXY is predominately mediated by the relatively conserved amino acids of TDIF. Structure-based sequence alignment showed that the TDIF-interacting motifs are also conserved among other known CLE receptors. Our data provide a structural template for understanding the recognition mechanism of CLE peptides by their receptors, offering an opportunity for the identification of receptors of other uncharacterized CLE peptides.


10.1038/cr.2016.45

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