Abstract
Aquaporins are membrane channel proteins ubiquitously present in all kingdoms of life. Although aquaporins were originally discovered as water channels, their roles in the transport of small neutral solutes, gasses, and metal ions are now well established. Plants contain the largest number and greatest diversity of aquaporin homologs with diverse subcellular localization patterns, gating properties, and solute specificity. The roles of aquaporins in physiological functions throughout plant growth and development are well known. As an integral regulator of plant–water relations, they are presumed to play an important role in plant defense responses against biotic and abiotic stressors. This review highlights involvement of various aquaporin homologs in plant stress responses against a variety of environmental stresses that disturb plant cell osmotic balance and nutrient homeostasis.
Highlights
Background and Discovery of AquaporinsWater, quite distinctly, is the universal solvent paramount for all living cells
Current data suggest that drought and salt stress induces more dramatic changes in aquaporin expression than any other abiotic stress [19]
Knockout mutants of plasma membrane intrinsic proteins (PIPs) and their overexpressing transgenic plants revealed that PIPs respond to osmotic stresses in an integrated, overexpressing transgenic plants revealed that PIPs respond to osmotic stresses in an integrated, complex way by regulating root water uptake and increasing transpiration rates as well as affecting complex way by regulating root water uptake and increasing transpiration rates as well as affecting the the overall plant growth and development processes
Summary
Quite distinctly, is the universal solvent paramount for all living cells. The transportation of water within an organism or between the organism and its environment is crucial to accomplishing all fundamental life processes. The diffusion of water across membranes occurs too slowly to account for particular physiological processes such as secretory pathways in mammals and stomatal aperture regulation in plants. Subcellular membranes within the same cell exhibit remarkably different levels of water permeability that cannot be justified solely by simple diffusion [1] To account for these processes, the transport of water across biological membranes through specialized pores rather than by simple diffusion was first proposed by Koefoed-Johnsen et al in. Due to their sedentary nature, the absence of a specialized circulatory system, and a large number of intracellular compartments, plants exhibit a great necessity for fine-tuned water regulation to adapt to environmental fluctuations. Explicate the roles of the seven subfamilies of aquaporins in drought and salinity responses, stomatal regulation, chilling responses, nutrient uptake and transport during growth and development, and biotic stress responses
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