Only recently it became apparent that signalling components in plants, as in mammalian systems, are involved in more than one signalling pathway, creating a need for research to understand the mechanisms of specificity and integration of these pathways within an individual cell. Our aim is to molecularly characterize the interaction between brassinosteroid and stomatal signalling pathways at the level of the brassinosteroid-regulated GSK3-like kinases. We explore the hypothesis that shared signalling components are recruited into different protein complexes to prevent cross signalling and that compartmentalization of the signal in the cell contributes to specificity.
The aim of the project is to combine genetics, proteomics and molecular cell biology to study the mechanisms of brassinosteroid signalling interaction at the level of BIN2 to eventually answer the question how specificity is achieved in brassinosteroid signalling.