A Phosphoinositide-Mediated Switch of GET Pathway Receptor Dimerization in Arabidopsis

    October 2025 in “ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ”
    Lei Zhang, Aron Struß, Mengchun Qin, Annika Dombrowski, Tingting Li, Susanne Viebahn, Dietmar Gerald Mehlhorn, Christopher Grefen
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    TLDR Phospholipids help plant proteins move by regulating receptor interactions.
    The study explores the regulation of the GET pathway in Arabidopsis, emphasizing the role of phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PI4P) in promoting the interaction between receptors AtGET1 and AtGET2 in the ER membrane. PI4P serves as an anchor, and its conversion to phosphatidylinositol (PI) by the phosphatase RHD4 is vital for the interaction necessary for tail-anchored protein insertion and root hair growth. A mutation in AtGET2 disrupts this process, but synthetic dimerization can restore function. The research underscores the significance of the PI4P-RHD4 module in controlling GET receptor dynamics and protein trafficking in plants.
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