Journal
PLANT SIGNALING & BEHAVIOR
Volume 6, Issue 4, Pages 558-562Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS INC
DOI: 10.4161/psb.6.4.14908
Keywords
potassium; channel; potassium channel; AKT2; phloem (re) loading; post-translational modifications; potassium battery
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Funding
- Abate Juan Ignacio Molina Excellence Award of the Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica de Chile (CONICYT)
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation [DR430/5-1, DR430/5-2, DR430/8-1]
- Heisenberg fellowship of the German Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)
- AleChile project NiaPoc of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
- CONICYT
- Agropolis Fondation (Reseau Thematique de Recherche Avancee Montpellier) [0803-022]
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Potassium (K+) is an important nutrient for plants. It serves as a cofactor of various enzymes and as the major inorganic solute maintaining plant cell turgor. In a recent study, an as yet unknown role of K+ in plant homeostasis was shown. It was demonstrated that K+ gradients in vascular tissues can serve as an energy source for phloem (re) loading processes and that the voltage-gated K+ channels of the AKT2-type play a unique role in this process. The AKT2 channel can be converted by phosphorylation of specific serine residues (S210 and S329) into a non-rectifying channel that allows a rapid efflux of K+ from the sieve element/companion cells (SE/CC) complex. The energy of this flux is used by other transporters for phloem (re) loading processes. Nonetheless, the results do indicate that post-translational modifications at S210 and S329 alone cannot explain AKT2 regulation. Here, we discuss the existence of multiple post-translational modification steps that work in concert to convert AKT2 from an inward-rectifying into a non-rectifying K+ channel.
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