Abstract
Amino acid transporters are the main mediators of nitrogen distribution throughout the plant body, and are essential for sustaining growth and development. In this review, we summarize the current state of knowledge on the identity and biological functions of amino acid transporters in plants, and discuss the regulation of amino acid transporters in response to environmental stimuli. We focus on transporter function in amino acid assimilation and phloem loading and unloading, as well as on the molecular identity of amino acid exporters. Moreover, we discuss the effects of amino acid transport on carbon assimilation, as well as their cross-regulation, which is at the heart of sustainable agricultural production.
Highlights
Nitrogen (N) is an essential nutrient for plant growth and reproduction
Most proteinogenic amino acids are synthesized in the plastids of mesophyll cells, but they can be manufactured in other cellular compartments, such as mitochondria, peroxisomes, and the cytosol [6]
Asparagine, and glutamine are most abundant in the xylem sap, whereas all amino acids are transported through the phloem [8,9,10]
Summary
Nitrogen (N) is an essential nutrient for plant growth and reproduction. Plants take up both inorganic nitrogen (ammonium and nitrate) and organic nitrogen (amino acids, peptides, proteins, and other N-containing compounds) from the soil [1,2,3,4]. With the development of genomics resources, genome-wide surveys have identified putative amino acid transporters in Arabidopsis (at least 60 genes), wheat (Triticum aestivum, 85 genes), rice (189 genes), soybean (Glycine max, 72 genes), potato (100 genes), poplar (Populus trichocarpa, 23 genes), Selaginalla (62 genes), and castor bean (Ricinus communis, 283 genes) [13,15,26,30,31,32,33,34] That these transporters exhibited biochemical properties comparable to Arabidopsis homologues suggested that the function of amino acid transporters is conserved across vascular plants. We discuss recent advances describing the identification, function, and regulation of amino acid transporters in plants, as well as possible directions for future research
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