Chloroplasts are integral to sensing biotic and abiotic stress in plants, but their role in transducing Ca-mediated stress signals remains poorly understood. Here we identify cMCU, a member of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) family, as an ion channel mediating Ca flux into chloroplasts in vivo. Using a toolkit of aequorin reporters targeted to chloroplast stroma and the cytosol in cMCU wild-type and knockout lines, we provide evidence that stress-stimulus-specific Ca dynamics in the chloroplast stroma correlate with expression of the channel.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOver the recent years, several proteins that make up the mitochondrial calcium uniporter complex (MCUC) mediating Cauptake into the mitochondrial matrix have been identified in mammals, including the channel-forming protein MCU. Although six MCU gene homologs are conserved in the model plant Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) in which mitochondria can accumulate Ca, a functional characterization of plant MCU homologs has been lacking. Using electrophysiology, we show that one isoform, AtMCU1, gives rise to a Ca-permeable channel activity that can be observed even in the absence of accessory proteins implicated in the formation of the active mammalian channel.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhotosynthetic eukaryotes have a complex evolutionary history shaped by multiple endosymbiosis events that required a tight coordination between the organelles and the rest of the cell. Plant ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGLRs) form a large superfamily of proteins with a predicted or proven non-selective cation channel activity regulated by a broad range of amino acids. They are involved in different physiological processes such as C/N sensing, resistance against fungal infection, root and pollen tube growth and response to wounding and pathogens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn natural habitats, plants frequently experience rapid changes in the intensity of sunlight. To cope with these changes and maximize growth, plants adjust photosynthetic light utilization in electron transport and photoprotective mechanisms. This involves a proton motive force (PMF) across the thylakoid membrane, postulated to be affected by unknown anion (Cl(-)) channels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants, being sessile organisms, have evolved the ability to integrate external stimuli into metabolic and developmental signals. A wide variety of signals, including abiotic, biotic, and developmental stimuli, were observed to evoke specific spatio-temporal Ca(2+) transients which are further transduced by Ca(2+) sensor proteins into a transcriptional and metabolic response. Most of the research on Ca(2+) signaling in plants has been focused on the transport mechanisms for Ca(2+) across the plasma- and the vacuolar membranes as well as on the components involved in decoding of cytoplasmic Ca(2+) signals, but how intracellular organelles such as mitochondria are involved in the process of Ca(2+) signaling is just emerging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlasma membrane potassium channels importantly contribute to maintain ion homeostasis across the cell membrane. The view is emerging that also those residing in intracellular membranes play pivotal roles for the coordination of correct cell function. In this review we critically discuss our current understanding of the nature and physiological tasks of potassium channels in organelle membranes in both animal and plant cells, with a special emphasis on their function in the regulation of photosynthesis and mitochondrial respiration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent technical advances in electrophysiological measurements, organelle-targeted fluorescence imaging, and organelle proteomics have pushed the research of ion transport a step forward in the case of the plant bioenergetic organelles, chloroplasts and mitochondria, leading to the molecular identification and functional characterization of several ion transport systems in recent years. Here we focus on channels that mediate relatively high-rate ion and water flux and summarize the current knowledge in this field, focusing on targeting mechanisms, proteomics, electrophysiology, and physiological function. In addition, since chloroplasts evolved from a cyanobacterial ancestor, we give an overview of the information available about cyanobacterial ion channels and discuss the evolutionary origin of chloroplast channels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlant organelle function must constantly adjust to environmental conditions, which requires dynamic coordination. Ca(2+) signaling may play a central role in this process. Free Ca(2+) dynamics are tightly regulated and differ markedly between the cytosol, plastid stroma, and mitochondrial matrix.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince the discovery of 20 genes encoding for putative ionotropic glutamate receptors in the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) genome, there has been considerable interest in uncovering their physiological functions. For many of these receptors, neither their channel formation and/or physiological roles nor their localization within the plant cells is known. Here, we provide, to our knowledge, new information about in vivo protein localization and give insight into the biological roles of the so-far uncharacterized Arabidopsis GLUTAMATE RECEPTOR3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMitochondrial calcium accumulation was recently shown to depend on a complex composed of an inner-membrane channel (MCU and MCUb) and regulatory subunits (MICU1, MCUR1, and EMRE). A fundamental property of MCU is low activity at resting cytosolic Ca(2+) concentrations, preventing deleterious Ca(2+) cycling and organelle overload. Here we demonstrate that these properties are ensured by a regulatory heterodimer composed of two proteins with opposite effects, MICU1 and MICU2, which, both in purified lipid bilayers and in intact cells, stimulate and inhibit MCU activity, respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe size of the light-induced proton motive force (pmf) across the thylakoid membrane of chloroplasts is regulated in response to environmental stimuli. Here, we describe a component of the thylakoid membrane, the two-pore potassium (K(+)) channel TPK3, which modulates the composition of the pmf through ion counterbalancing. Recombinant TPK3 exhibited potassium-selective channel activity sensitive to Ca(2+) and H(+).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) channel is responsible for Ruthenium Red-sensitive mitochondrial calcium uptake. Here, we demonstrate MCU oligomerization by immunoprecipitation and Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) and characterize a novel protein (MCUb) with two predicted transmembrane domains, 50% sequence similarity and a different expression profile from MCU. Based on computational modelling, MCUb includes critical amino-acid substitutions in the pore region and indeed MCUb does not form a calcium-permeable channel in planar lipid bilayers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhotosynthesis converts light energy into chemical energy, and supplies ATP and NADPH for CO2 fixation into carbohydrates and for the synthesis of several compounds which are essential for autotrophic growth. Oxygenic photosynthesis takes place in thylakoid membranes of chloroplasts and photosynthetic prokaryote cyanobacteria. An ancestral photoautotrophic prokaryote related to cyanobacteria has been proposed to give rise to chloroplasts of plants and algae through an endosymbiotic event.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntimicrobial photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a promising tool to combat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. During PDT, bacteria are killed by reactive oxygen species generated by a visible light absorbing photosensitizer (PS). We used a classical proteomic approach that included two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry analysis, to identify some proteins of Staphylococcus aureus that are damaged during PDT with the cationic PS meso-tetra-4-N-methyl pyridyl porphine (T4).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMitochondrial Ca(2+) homeostasis has a key role in the regulation of aerobic metabolism and cell survival, but the molecular identity of the Ca(2+) channel, the mitochondrial calcium uniporter, is still unknown. Here we have identified in silico a protein (named MCU) that shares tissue distribution with MICU1 (also known as CBARA1), a recently characterized uniporter regulator, is present in organisms in which mitochondrial Ca(2+) uptake was demonstrated and whose sequence includes two transmembrane domains. Short interfering RNA (siRNA) silencing of MCU in HeLa cells markedly reduced mitochondrial Ca(2+) uptake.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndirect evidence points to the presence of K(+) channels in plant mitochondria. In the present study, we report the results of the first patch clamp experiments on plant mitochondria. Single-channel recordings in 150 mM potassium gluconate have allowed the biophysical characterization of a channel with a conductance of 150 pS in the inner mitochondrial membrane of mitoplasts obtained from wheat (Triticum durum Desf.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBioinformatic approaches have allowed the identification in Arabidopsis thaliana of twenty genes encoding for homologues of animal ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGLRs). Some of these putative receptor proteins, grouped into three subfamilies, have been located to the plasmamembrane, but their possible location in organelles has not been investigated so far. In the present work we provide multiple evidence for the plastid localization of a glutamate receptor, AtGLR3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBioinformatic approaches have allowed the identification of twenty genes, grouped into three subfamilies, encoding for homologues of animal ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGLRs) in the Arabidopsis thaliana model plant. Indirect evidence suggests that plant iGLRs function as non-selective cation channels. In the present work we provide biochemical and electrophysiological evidences for the chloroplast localization of glutamate receptor(s) of family 3 (iGLR3) in spinach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElucidation of the structure-function relationship of a small number of prokaryotic ion channels characterized so far greatly contributed to our knowledge on basic mechanisms of ion conduction. We identified a new potassium channel (SynK) in the genome of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC6803, a photosynthetic model organism.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe PsbS subunit of Photosystem II (PSII) has received much attention in the past few years, given its crucial role in photoprotection of higher plants. The exact location of this small subunit in thylakoids is also debated. In this work possible interaction partners of PsbS have been identified by immunoaffinity and immunoprecipitation, performed with mildly solubilized whole thylakoid membrane.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeven genes seem to encode for putative ClC chloride channels (AtClC-a to AtClC-g) in Arabidopsis thaliana. Their function and localization is still largely unknown. AtClC-f shares considerable sequence similarity with putative ClC channel proteins from Synechocystis, considered to represent the precursor of chloroplasts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
December 2003
In higher plants, the PsbS subunit of photosystem II (PSII) plays a crucial role in pH- and xanthophyll-dependent nonphotochemical quenching of excess absorbed light energy, thus contributing to the defense mechanism against photoinhibition. We determined the amino acid sequence of Zea mays PsbS and produced an antibody that recognizes with high specificity a region of the protein located in the stroma-exposed loop between the second and third putative helices. By means of this antiserum, the thylakoid membranes of various higher plant species revealed the presence of a 42-kDa protein band, indicating the formation of a dimer of the 21-kDa PsbS protein.
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