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A subgroup of plant aquaporins facilitate the bi-directional diffusion of As(OH)(3 )and Sb(OH)(3 )across membranes

BACKGROUND: Arsenic is a toxic and highly abundant metalloid that endangers human health through drinking water and the food chain. The most common forms of arsenic in the environment are arsenate (As(V)) and arsenite (As(III)). As(V) is a non-functional phosphate analog that enters the food chain v...

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Autores principales: Bienert, Gerd P, Thorsen, Michael, Schüssler, Manuela D, Nilsson, Henrik R, Wagner, Annemarie, Tamás, Markus J, Jahn, Thomas P
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2442057/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18544156
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7007-6-26
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author Bienert, Gerd P
Thorsen, Michael
Schüssler, Manuela D
Nilsson, Henrik R
Wagner, Annemarie
Tamás, Markus J
Jahn, Thomas P
author_facet Bienert, Gerd P
Thorsen, Michael
Schüssler, Manuela D
Nilsson, Henrik R
Wagner, Annemarie
Tamás, Markus J
Jahn, Thomas P
author_sort Bienert, Gerd P
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Arsenic is a toxic and highly abundant metalloid that endangers human health through drinking water and the food chain. The most common forms of arsenic in the environment are arsenate (As(V)) and arsenite (As(III)). As(V) is a non-functional phosphate analog that enters the food chain via plant phosphate transporters. Inside cells, As(V) becomes reduced to As(III) for subsequent extrusion or compartmentation. Although much is known about As(III) transport and handling in microbes and mammals, the transport systems for As(III) have not yet been characterized in plants. RESULTS: Here we show that the Nodulin26-like Intrinsic Proteins (NIPs) AtNIP5;1 and AtNIP6;1 from Arabidopsis thaliana, OsNIP2;1 and OsNIP3;2 from Oryza sativa, and LjNIP5;1 and LjNIP6;1 from Lotus japonicus are bi-directional As(III) channels. Expression of these NIPs sensitized yeast cells to As(III) and antimonite (Sb(III)), and direct transport assays confirmed their ability to facilitate As(III) transport across cell membranes. On medium containing As(V), expression of the same NIPs improved yeast growth, probably due to increased As(III) efflux. Our data furthermore provide evidence that NIPs can discriminate between highly similar substrates and that they may have differential preferences in the direction of transport. A subgroup of As(III) permeable channels that group together in a phylogenetic tree required N-terminal truncation for functional expression in yeast. CONCLUSION: This is the first molecular identification of plant As(III) transport systems and we propose that metalloid transport through NIPs is a conserved and ancient feature. Our observations are potentially of great importance for improved remediation and tolerance of plants, and may provide a key to the development of low arsenic crops for food production.
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spelling pubmed-24420572008-07-01 A subgroup of plant aquaporins facilitate the bi-directional diffusion of As(OH)(3 )and Sb(OH)(3 )across membranes Bienert, Gerd P Thorsen, Michael Schüssler, Manuela D Nilsson, Henrik R Wagner, Annemarie Tamás, Markus J Jahn, Thomas P BMC Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: Arsenic is a toxic and highly abundant metalloid that endangers human health through drinking water and the food chain. The most common forms of arsenic in the environment are arsenate (As(V)) and arsenite (As(III)). As(V) is a non-functional phosphate analog that enters the food chain via plant phosphate transporters. Inside cells, As(V) becomes reduced to As(III) for subsequent extrusion or compartmentation. Although much is known about As(III) transport and handling in microbes and mammals, the transport systems for As(III) have not yet been characterized in plants. RESULTS: Here we show that the Nodulin26-like Intrinsic Proteins (NIPs) AtNIP5;1 and AtNIP6;1 from Arabidopsis thaliana, OsNIP2;1 and OsNIP3;2 from Oryza sativa, and LjNIP5;1 and LjNIP6;1 from Lotus japonicus are bi-directional As(III) channels. Expression of these NIPs sensitized yeast cells to As(III) and antimonite (Sb(III)), and direct transport assays confirmed their ability to facilitate As(III) transport across cell membranes. On medium containing As(V), expression of the same NIPs improved yeast growth, probably due to increased As(III) efflux. Our data furthermore provide evidence that NIPs can discriminate between highly similar substrates and that they may have differential preferences in the direction of transport. A subgroup of As(III) permeable channels that group together in a phylogenetic tree required N-terminal truncation for functional expression in yeast. CONCLUSION: This is the first molecular identification of plant As(III) transport systems and we propose that metalloid transport through NIPs is a conserved and ancient feature. Our observations are potentially of great importance for improved remediation and tolerance of plants, and may provide a key to the development of low arsenic crops for food production. BioMed Central 2008-06-10 /pmc/articles/PMC2442057/ /pubmed/18544156 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7007-6-26 Text en Copyright © 2008 Bienert et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bienert, Gerd P
Thorsen, Michael
Schüssler, Manuela D
Nilsson, Henrik R
Wagner, Annemarie
Tamás, Markus J
Jahn, Thomas P
A subgroup of plant aquaporins facilitate the bi-directional diffusion of As(OH)(3 )and Sb(OH)(3 )across membranes
title A subgroup of plant aquaporins facilitate the bi-directional diffusion of As(OH)(3 )and Sb(OH)(3 )across membranes
title_full A subgroup of plant aquaporins facilitate the bi-directional diffusion of As(OH)(3 )and Sb(OH)(3 )across membranes
title_fullStr A subgroup of plant aquaporins facilitate the bi-directional diffusion of As(OH)(3 )and Sb(OH)(3 )across membranes
title_full_unstemmed A subgroup of plant aquaporins facilitate the bi-directional diffusion of As(OH)(3 )and Sb(OH)(3 )across membranes
title_short A subgroup of plant aquaporins facilitate the bi-directional diffusion of As(OH)(3 )and Sb(OH)(3 )across membranes
title_sort subgroup of plant aquaporins facilitate the bi-directional diffusion of as(oh)(3 )and sb(oh)(3 )across membranes
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2442057/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18544156
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7007-6-26
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