Identification of important regions for ethylene binding and signaling in the transmembrane domain of the ETR1 ethylene receptor of Arabidopsis.

The ethylene binding domain (EBD) of the Arabidopsis thaliana ETR1 receptor is modeled as three membrane-spanning helices. We surveyed ethylene binding activity in different kingdoms and performed a bioinformatic analysis of the EBD. Ethylene binding is confined to land plants, Chara, and a group of cyanobacteria but is largely absent in other organisms, consistent with our finding that EBD-like sequences are overrepresented among plant and cyanobacterial species.