Two hands hold a small potted plant and a blue 3D-printed object outdoors.
Professor Bo Liu, Department of Plant Biology, holds an Arabidopsis plant while Professor Jawdat Al-Bassam, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, holds a model of the augmin protein complex. Liu and Al-Bassam have worked out the structure of the augmin complex, which plays a vital role in maintaining the protein skeleton in both plant and animal cells. This could have applications both in human cancer and infertility, and in breeding new varieties of crop plants. (Joaquin Benitez / UC Davis)

Plant Cell Structure Could Hold Key to Cancer Therapies and Improved Crops

Augmin Protein Complex Regulates Intracellular Skeleton Essential to Life

  • by Douglas Fox

Can the bend of a banana give us insight into cancer? What does the shape of a rice grain have to do with infertility? The proteins that give plants their shape and structure are also involved in human disease. A team led by researchers at the University of California, Davis, has mapped out the structure of a key player, augmin, in exhaustive detail.

“This work shows how plants and animals are similar,” said Jawdat Al-Bassam, associate professor of molecular and cellular biology at UC Davis. “It could help answer some fundamental questions not just about plants, but also humans.”

Augmin is a protein complex that binds to microtubules, the cell’s internal skeleton, aiding in the formation of branched microtubules and playing a key role in cell division.

Augmin defects can cause infertility in humans. In addition, “some augmin subunits are highly expressed in human cancer cells,” said Bo Liu, a professor of plant biology who collaborated with Al-Bassam on the new study. Understanding its structure could yield both new medical treatments and new strategies for breeding higher-quality rice and cotton crops.

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