Structural insights on Sucrose transport by Oryza sativa L. Sucrose/H+ Symporter1 (OsSUT1) through refined sequence - template alignment based structural modelling

Abstract

Sucrose/H+ Symporters (SUTs) play an important role in plant growth and yield. They are involved in long distance transport of sucrose from source leaves to filling grains of cereals through a process called phloem loading. However, the molecular mechanism of sucrose transport through SUTs is not yet known. Understanding the key residues involved in sucrose transport can be helpful in developing high yielding varieties through genetic engineering, gene editing or allele mining. Here, the molecular model of OsSUT1 developed based on refined target-template alignment using Modeller software provides structural insights on the sucrose transport mechanism. We propose 13 putative sucrose binding residues and 11 putative H+ binding residues involved in sucrose/H+ co-transport in OsSUT1.