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Research of Aquaporin in Plants
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Research of Aquaporin in Plants

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Development and Morphogenesis".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 December 2022) | Viewed by 1851

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Farzana Sabir

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. LEAF, Linking Landscape, Environment, Agriculture and Food (LEAF), Departmento de Recursos Biológicos, Ambiente e Território (DRAT), Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal
2. Research Institute for Medicines (iMed.ULisboa), Faculty of Pharmacy, Universidade de Lisboa, 1649-003 Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: plant physiology; plant molecular biology; plant biochemistry; medicinal plants; natural products; plant membrane transporters; abiotic stress
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The sessile nature of plants restricts their access to water and essential minerals in their vicinity. As a result, they have evolved functional diversity in membrane transporters for efficient water supply and vital components from their unstable surroundings. Aquaporin (AQPs), which belongs to the membrane intrinsic protein (MIP) family regulates water homeostasis in all living organisms. At the whole plant level, root water uptake and transpiration are interlinked and centrally regulated by aquaporins, contributing to cellular and long‐distance water movement. Besides water, they can transport a broad but specific array of solutes ranging from metabolic substrates like boron, ammonia and urea and gases like CO2, to reactive oxygen species (ROS) like H2O2. In the sequence of aquaporins, two highly conserved Asn-Pro-Ala (NPA) motif forms aqueous pore for water transport, whereas aromatic/Arg (ar/R) constrictions present at various positions decide the nature of other atypical substrates. Plant genomes have several folds more aquaporin genes than other organisms to regulate the water and ion homeostasis, implying their unique necessity for growth and adaptation under stress. Up/downregulations of aquaporins have been shown under various abiotic stresses like drought, salinity, and nutrient imbalance.

However, the underlying molecular mechanisms balancing the plant water relations are not precisely determined. Despite our current understanding, various aspects of aquaporins' role in plant response and adaptation under stress are still lacking adequate attention. Besides, their significance for micronutrient transport and translocation and extrusion of toxic metalloids also represent an interesting area to further explore.

The present Special Issue intends to address these questions. It invites the studies related to plant aquaporin function and regulation under stress describing the current advances in this area.

Dr. Farzana Sabir
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • water channels
  • abiotic stress
  • water homoeostasis
  • nutrient balance

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 1911 KiB  
Article
Genome-Wide Analysis of Aquaporins in Japanese Morning Glory (Ipomoea nil)
by Tamami Inden, Atsushi Hoshino, Shungo Otagaki, Shogo Matsumoto and Katsuhiro Shiratake
Plants 2023, 12(7), 1511; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12071511 - 30 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1625
Abstract
The aquaporin (AQP) family, also called water channels or major intrinsic proteins, facilitate water transport. AQPs also transport low-molecular-weight solutes, including boric acid, glycerol, urea, and ammonia. Since plants are sessile, water homeostasis is crucial. Therefore, plants have developed diverse AQP variants at [...] Read more.
The aquaporin (AQP) family, also called water channels or major intrinsic proteins, facilitate water transport. AQPs also transport low-molecular-weight solutes, including boric acid, glycerol, urea, and ammonia. Since plants are sessile, water homeostasis is crucial. Therefore, plants have developed diverse AQP variants at higher expression levels than animals. For example, 35 and 33 AQPs have been identified in Arabidopsis and rice, respectively. In the present study, we identified AQPs in morning glory (Ipomoea nil), which has been widely used as a model plant in research on flowering and floral morphology. The importance of AQPs in the opening of morning glory flowers has been reported. In the morning glory genome, 44 AQPs were identified, and their characteristics were analyzed. A phylogenetic analysis revealed five AQP subfamilies in morning glory: plasma membrane-intrinsic proteins (PIPs), tonoplast-intrinsic proteins (TIPs), nodulin 26-like intrinsic proteins (NIPs), small basic intrinsic proteins (SIPs), and X-intrinsic proteins (XIPs). Further, transport substrates of morning glory AQPs were estimated based on their homology to the known AQPs in other plant species and their corresponding amino acid motifs that possess permeability pores. It was expected that PIPs are likely to transport water, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen peroxide; TIPs are likely transport water, hydrogen peroxide, ammonia, urea, and boric acid; NIPs are likely transport water, boric acid, ammonia, glycerol, and formamide; and XIPs are likely to transport water, hydrogen peroxide, and glycerol. Overall, these results suggest that AQPs are involved in water and nutrient transport in Japanese morning glory. An in silico gene expression analysis suggested the importance of AQPs in flower opening, water or nutrient uptakes from the soil to roots, and photosynthesis in morning glory. Our findings provide fundamental information that enables further study into the importance of AQPs in morning glory, including their roles in flower opening and other physiological events. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research of Aquaporin in Plants)
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