In Search of Monocot Phosphodiesterases: Identification of a Calmodulin Stimulated Phosphodiesterase from Brachypodium distachyon

In plants, rapid and reversible biological responses to environmental cues may require complex cellular reprograming. This is enabled by signaling molecules such as the cyclic nucleotide monophosphates (cNMPs) cAMP and cGMP, as well as Ca²⁺. While the roles and synthesis of cAMP and cGMP in plants are increasingly well-characterized, the “off signal” afforded by cNMP-degrading enzymes, the phosphodiesterases (PDEs), is, however, poorly understood, particularly so in monocots. Here, we identified a candidate PDE from the monocot Brachypodium distachyon (BDPDE1) and showed that it can hydrolyze cNMPs to 5′NMPs but with a preference for cAMP over cGMP in vitro. Notably, the PDE activity was significantly enhanced by Ca²⁺ only in the presence of calmodulin (CaM), which interacts with BDPDE1, most likely at a predicted CaM-binding site. Finally, based on our biochemical, mutagenesis and structural analyses, we constructed a comprehensive amino acid consensus sequence extracted from the catalytic centers of annotated and/or experimentally validated PDEs across species to enable a broad application of this search motif for the identification of similar active sites in eukaryotes and prokaryotes.