Abstract - Deoranie Nikita Brasse and Ramy Abdel-Naby

This paper presents the results of an analysis of BAR domains in the small flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana, widely used as the model for plant biology,  where their function remains largely unexamined. Membrane curvature, which makes possible various cellular processes, including but not limited to endocytosis, intracellular trafficking, information transport and vesicle formation, has traditionally been seen by scientists as a passive result of cellular activity. Today, however, many studies have concluded that protein domains called BAR domains are the structures that participate in, steer and sense membrane curvature. In other words, membrane curvature is no longer thought to be a process that just happens. BAR domains, which are part of the Amphiphysin protein family, have been described as crescent shaped [timers? dimmers?] that guide the early phases of endocytosis and intracellular transport. For this project, the BAR domains of Arabidopsis thaliana were modeled using an automated modeling pipeline with manual refinement methods in order to investigate their mechanism relative to other higher organisms. Seventeen non-redundant domain sequences were identified in Arabidopsis thaliana, which can be grouped into three different classes, based on their electrostatic profiles and domain architecture. This analysis provides new insight into the features of plant BAR domains, including distinct electrostatic profiles for domain sequences categorized within the same class and atypical electrostatic profiles showing a concentration of negatively charged residues at both extremities of the structural fold. These results are important in understanding how BAR domains in plants are implicated in plant signaling and membrane trafficking.

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