Seminarios IHSM La Mayora - Julia Santiago Cuéllar (Universidad de Lausanne, Suiza)

Don't take me wrong: Structural determinants for specific peptide recognition between LRR receptor families Plants rely on unique membrane receptor kinases and their cognate peptide ligands to control all aspects of plant life, ranging from, defense and stress responses to development. Dissecting receptor-ligand specificity is key to understand how similar looking membrane receptors can discriminate between peptides ligands to fine tune developmental processes. Using structure biology, quantitative biochemistry, and genetics we dissect how two families of Leucine-rich repeat receptor kinases (LRR-RKs) have evolved to specifically sense two distinct, yet sequence-related, signaling peptide families to regulate leaf epidermal cell patterning in plants. Our results illustrate the relevance of using a multidisciplinary approach to uncover receptor-peptide specificity and signaling.