Although phosphorylation has long been known to be an important regulatory modification
of proteins, no unequivocal evidence has been presented to show functional control by
phosphorylation for the plant monolignol biosynthetic pathway. Here, we present the
discovery of phosphorylation-mediated on/off regulation of enzyme activity for 5-
hydroxyconiferaldehyde O-methyltransferase 2 (PtrAldOMT2), an enzyme central to
monolignol biosynthesis for lignification in stem-differentiating xylem (SDX) of Populus …

… However, post-translational modification by protein phosphorylation had not been
demonstrated in the regulation of monolignol biosynthesis. In this research, the discovery of
phosphorylation mediated on/off regulation of enzyme activity for 5-hydroxyconiferaldehyde
O-methyltransferase 2 (PtrAldOMT2), an enzyme central to monolignol biosynthesis for
lignification in stem differentiating xylem (SDX) of Populus trichocarpa, was presented.
Global shotgun proteomic analysis of P. trichocarpa SDX protein fractions identified …