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Plant and Cell Physiology Advance Access originally published online on September 18, 2006
Plant and Cell Physiology 2006 47(10):1381-1393; doi:10.1093/pcp/pcl011
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Identification and Expression Analysis of Twelve Members of the Nucleobase–Ascorbate Transporter (NAT) Gene Family in Arabidopsis thaliana

Verónica G. Maurino1, Esther Grube1, Julia Zielinski, Alexander Schild, Karsten Fischer and Ulf-Ingo Flügge*

Botanisches Institut der Universität zu Köln, Lehrstuhl II, Gyrhofstrasse 15, D-50931 Cologne, Germany

* Corresponding author: E-mail, ui.fluegge{at}uni-koeln.de; Fax, +49-221-470 5039.

By screening genome databases, 12 genes encoding membrane proteins homologous to nucleobase–ascorbate transporters (NATs) were identified in Arabidopsis thaliana. A similar number of genes was found in the rice genome. The plant NAT proteins split into five clades (I–V) based on protein multisequence alignments. This classification nicely correlates with the patterns of organ- and tissue-specific expression during the whole life cycle of A. thaliana. Interestingly, expression of two members of clade III, AtNAT7 and AtNAT8, was found to be up-regulated in undifferentiated tissues such as callus or tumors produced by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Clade V comprises AtNAT12 possessing a hydrophilic N-terminal extension. Transient expression of green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusions in different systems showed that AtNAT12 along with AtNAT7 and -8 are located in the plasma membrane. Mutations in any of the AtNAT genes do not induce phenotypic alterations. The absence of obvious mutant phenotypes in single but also in double and triple mutants suggests a high degree of functional redundancy between AtNAT genes, but might also point to redundant functions provided by genes or pathways unrelated to the AtNATs.

1 These authors contributed equally to this work.

The nucleotide sequences reported in this paper have been submitted to GenBank under accession numbers AY444864 and AY444865 for AtNAT11 and AtNAT12, respectively.

(Received August 18, 2006; Accepted September 12, 2006)
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