Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

MINERAL NUTRIENT ELEMENT TRANSPORTER PROTEINS IN PLANTS

Gagandeep Kaur and Navita Ghai

Abstract

Plants require mineral nutrient elements, predominantly acquired from the soil but also from foliar applications, to maintain normal growth and development and ensure the completion of life cycles. Plants have expanded families of transporters that are involved in the uptake and efflux of metals. The recent cloning of the genes for a large number of transport proteins and the availability of knockout mutants make it possible to dissect transport processes in greater detail and understand the interactions between ion uptake processes. The acquisition and distribution of these elements are important targets for research because their metabolic and biochemical functions are associated with all aspects of plant physiology, plant biochemistry and plant molecular biology. This article summarizes recent progress in characterizing the genes and the proteins involved in transporting mineral nutrient elements.