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Title: IDENTIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF PLANT TRANSPORTERS USING HETEROLOGOUS EXPRESSION SYSTEMS

Author
item DREYER, I - ENSA-M/INRA/CNRS FRANCE
item HOREAU, C - ENSA-M/INRA/CNRS FRANCE
item LEMAILLET, G - ENSA-M/INRA/CNRS FRANCE
item ZIMMERMANN, S - INSTITUT MOLEKULARE GR
item BUSH, DANIEL
item RODRAEGUEZ-NAVARR, A - BIOTECHNOLOGIA AGR SP
item SCHACHTMAN, D - UNIV ADELAIDE-BOTANY AU
item SPALDING, E - BOTANY UNIV OF WISCONSIN
item SENTENAC, H - ENSA-M/INRA/CNRS FR
item GABER, R - BIOCHEM NORTHWEST UNIV IL

Submitted to: Journal of Experimental Botany
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/1/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Nutrient transport proteins play key roles in acquiring and allocating resources in crop plants. These are typically low abundance membrane proteins that are very difficult to study using traditional biochemical methods. In this paper, we discuss recent breakthroughs in describing these proteins that were made possible by expressing plant genes in yeast, frog eggs, and insect cells. We now understand the transport properties of many key transport proteins, such as those that move sugar and amino acids. This knowledge is being used by academic and industrial scientists to develop novel stratgies for solving important agricultural problems.

Technical Abstract: In recent years major progress has been achieved in understanding basic transport processes in higher plants. The boom in the field of molecular plant physiology led to the identification and characterization of membrane transporters with transport activities for potassium, calcium, sugar, nitrate, ammonium, sulfate, phosphate, amino acids, peptides, and metal ions. Such progress was hardly feasible without heterologous expression of the isolated transport proteins. This paper summarizes the different approaches in characterizing plant membrane transporters using heterologous expression systems. It outlines different cloning strategies, presents the methods used for i) expression of transport proteins and detection of their function, ii) biochemical analyses, and iii) explorations of the structure-function relationship through mutational analysis, and concludes with a discussion about the physiological relevance of the analyses in heterologous expression systems.