Abstract
The proteins of membrane transporters (MTs) are embedded within membrane-bounded organelles and are the prime targets for improvements in the efficiency of water and nutrient transportation. Their function is to maintain cellular homeostasis by controlling ionic movements across cellular channels from roots to upper plant parts, xylem loading and remobilization of sugar molecules from photosynthesis tissues in the leaf (source) to roots, stem and seeds (sink) via phloem loading. The plant’s entire source-to-sink relationship is regulated by multiple transporting proteins in a highly sophisticated manner and driven based on different stages of plant growth and development (PG&D) and environmental changes. The MTs play a pivotal role in PG&D in terms of increased plant height, branches/tiller numbers, enhanced numbers, length and filled panicles per plant, seed yield and grain quality. Dynamic climatic changes disturbed ionic balance (salt, drought and heavy metals) and sugar supply (cold and heat stress) in plants. Due to poor selectivity, some of the MTs also uptake toxic elements in roots negatively impact PG&D and are later on also exported to upper parts where they deteriorate grain quality. As an adaptive strategy, in response to salt and heavy metals, plants activate plasma membranes and vacuolar membrane-localized MTs that export toxic elements into vacuole and also translocate in the root’s tips and shoot. However, in case of drought, cold and heat stresses, MTs increased water and sugar supplies to all organs. In this review, we mainly review recent literature from Arabidopsis, halophytes and major field crops such as rice, wheat, maize and oilseed rape in order to argue the global role of MTs in PG&D, and abiotic stress tolerance. We also discussed gene expression level changes and genomic variations within a species as well as within a family in response to developmental and environmental cues.
Highlights
With the current pace, global population is expected to grow with minimum 25% and reach “10 Billions” in 2050 [1]
We provided an overview of the roles of membrane transporters (MTs) in plant growth and development (PG&D) in terms of their role in the improvement of plant architecture, seed yield, sugar transport and ionic balance for optimal plant growth by minimizing the impacts of external harsh environments
In the lines with functional alleles, it showed higher expressions of Zrt-/Irt-like protein (ZIP) family MTs such as OsZIP4, OsZIP5, OsZIP8 and OsZIP10 that are involved in the transportation and homeostasis of essential trace elements including Zn, iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn) [35]
Summary
Global population is expected to grow with minimum 25% and reach “10 Billions” in 2050 [1]. For a detailed overview on the role of MTs in PG&D, refer to Section 2 Both sugar and ionic homeostases in the cells, tissues and organs are regulated by a highly sophisticated membrane trafficking system. In rice, to tackle salt and drought stress, two members of the “Sugar Will Eventually be Exported Transporters (SWEETs)” family such as OsSWEET 13 and OsSWEET 15 are activated, and they enhanced the sugar supply across leaf and root organs in an abscisic acid (ABA)-dependent manner [15]. There are numerous studies in many plant species that evidenced the pivotal role of MTs in uptake, sequestration, translocation and detoxification of toxic HMs including cadmium (Cd) [17], chromium (Cr) [18], lead (Pb) [19], As [20], cobalt (Co) and zinc (Zn) [21] (for more details, see Section 3). We have tried to provide the recent understandings on how MTs respond to changing environments, for instance, strengthening of leaf sheath and increased sugar supply
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