Increasing gene dosage greatly enhances recombinant expression of aquaporins in Pichia pastoris.

Background: When performing functional and structural studies, large quantities of pure protein are desired. Most membrane proteins are however not abundantly expressed in their native tissues, which in general rules out purification from natural sources. Heterologous expression, especially of eukaryotic membrane proteins, has also proven to be challenging.

Algal MIPs, high diversity and conserved motifs.

Background: Major intrinsic proteins (MIPs) also named aquaporins form channels facilitating the passive transport of water and other small polar molecules across membranes. MIPs are particularly abundant and diverse in terrestrial plants but little is known about their evolutionary history. In an attempt to investigate the origin of the plant MIP subfamilies, genomes of chlorophyte algae, the sister group of charophyte algae and land plants, were searched for MIP encoding genes.

Phylogeny of major intrinsic proteins.

Major intrinsic proteins (MIPs) form a large superfamily of proteins that can be divided into different subfamilies and groups according to phylogenetic analyses. Plants encode more MIPs than o ther organisms and se ven subfamilies have been defined, whereofthe Nodulin26-like major intrinsic proteins (NIPs) have been shown to permeate metalloids. In this chapter we review the phylogeny of MIPs in general and especially of the plant MIPs.

Transcriptional regulation of aquaporins in accessions of Arabidopsis in response to drought stress.

Aquaporins facilitate water transport over cellular membranes, and are therefore believed to play an important role in water homeostasis. In higher plants aquaporin-like proteins, also called major intrinsic proteins (MIPs), are divided into five subfamilies. We have previously shown that MIP transcription in Arabidopsis thaliana is generally downregulated in leaves upon drought stress, apart from two members of the plasma membrane intrinsic protein (PIP) subfamily, AtPIP1;4 and AtPIP2;5, which are upregulated.

Unexpected complexity of the aquaporin gene family in the moss Physcomitrella patens.

Background: Aquaporins, also called major intrinsic proteins (MIPs), constitute an ancient superfamily of channel proteins that facilitate the transport of water and small solutes across cell membranes. MIPs are found in almost all living organisms and are particularly abundant in plants where they form a divergent group of proteins able to transport a wide selection of substrates.

Results: Analyses of the whole genome of Physcomitrella patens resulted in the identification of 23 MIPs, belonging to seven different subfamilies, of which only five have been previously described.