Skip Navigation


Plant and Cell Physiology Advance Access originally published online on June 12, 2007
Plant and Cell Physiology 2007 48(7):1022-1035; doi:10.1093/pcp/pcm073
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
48/7/1022    most recent
pcm073v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (2)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sugiura, M.
Right arrow Articles by Takahashi, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Sugiura, M.
Right arrow Articles by Takahashi, M.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by Sugiura, M.
Right arrow Articles by Takahashi, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

A Nitrite Transporter Associated with Nitrite Uptake by Higher Plant Chloroplasts

Miwa Sugiura, Mihaela N. Georgescu and Masaaki Takahashi*

Department of Applied Life Sciences, Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Osaka Prefecture University, 1-1 Gakuen-cho, Naka-ku, Sakai, Osaka, 599-8531 Japan

*Corresponding author: E-mail, mtakahashi864{at}ybb.ne.jp; Fax, +81-72-254-9451.


  Abstract

Chloroplasts take up cytosolic nitrite during nitrate assimilation. In this study we identified a nitrite transporter located in the chloroplasts of higher plants. The transporter, CsNitr1-L, a member of the proton-dependent oligopeptide transporter (POT) family, was detected during light-induced chloroplast development in de-etiolating cucumber seedlings. We detected a CsNitr1-L–green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusion protein in the chloroplasts of leaf cells and found that an immunoreactive 51 kDa protein was present in the isolated inner envelope membrane of chloroplasts. CsNitr1-L has an isoform, CsNitr1-S, with an identical 484 amino acid core sequence; however, in CsNitr1-S the 120 amino acid N-terminal extension is missing. Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells expressing CsNitr1-S absorbed nitrite from an acidic medium at a slower rate than mock-transformed control cells, and accumulated nitrite to only one-sixth the concentration of the control cells, suggesting that CsNitr1-S enhances the efflux of nitrite from the cell. Insertion of T-DNA in a single CsNitr1-L homolog (At1g68570) in Arabidopsis resulted in nitrite accumulation in leaves to more than five times the concentration found in the wild type. These results show that it is possible that both CsNitr1-L and CsNitr1-S encode efflux-type nitrite transporters, but with different subcellular localizations. CsNitr1-L may possibly load cytosolic nitrite into chloroplast stroma in the chloroplast envelope during nitrate assimilation. The presence of genes homologous to CsNitr1-L in the genomes of Arabidopsis and rice indicates that facilitated nitrite transport is of general physiological importance in plant nutrition.

Keywords: Chloroplast envelope - Cucumis sativus (cucumber) - Nitrate assimilation - Nitrite transporter - Proton-dependent oligopeptide transporter (POT)

Abbreviations: CaMV35S, cauliflower mosaic virus 35S RNA; dNTP, deoxyribonucleoside-5'-triphosphate; GFP, green fluorescent protein; POT, proton-dependent oligopeptide transporter; RACE, rapid amplification of cDNA ends; RT–PCR, reverse transcription—PCR

(Received March 6, 2007; Accepted June 5, 2007)
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Am. J. Physiol. Heart Circ. Physiol.Home page
D. A. Vitturi, X. Teng, J. C. Toledo, S. Matalon, J. R. Lancaster Jr., and R. P. Patel
Regulation of nitrite transport in red blood cells by hemoglobin oxygen fractional saturation
Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, May 1, 2009; 296(5): H1398 - H1407.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.