The emerging concept of transportome: state of the art.

Abstract

The array of ion channels and transporters expressed in cell membranes-collectively referred to as the transportome-is a complex and multifunctional molecular machinery; in particular, at the plasma membrane level it finely tunes the exchange of biomolecules and ions acting as a functionally adaptive interface that accounts for dynamic plasticity in the response to environmental fluctuations and stressors. The transportome is responsible for the definition of membrane potential and its variations, participates in the transduction of extracellular signals, and acts as a filter for most of the substances entering and leaving the cell, thus enabling the homeostasis of many cellular parameters. For all these reasons, physiologists have long been interested in the expression and functionality of ion channels and transporters, both in physiological and pathological settings, and across the different domains of life. Today, thanks to the high-throughput technologies of the post-genomic era, the omics approach to the study of the transportome is becoming increasingly popular in different areas of biomedical research, allowing for a more comprehensive, integrated, and functional perspective of this complex cellular apparatus. This paper represents a first effort for a systematic review of the scientific literature on this topic. Here we report a brief overview of all those studies-both primary and meta-analyses-that looked at the transportome as a whole, regardless of the biological problem or the models they used. A later section is devoted to the methodological aspect by reviewing the most important public databases with transporter annotations. Before conclusions, limitations and future perspectives are also discussed.