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Functional Plant Biology Functional Plant Biology Society
Plant function and evolutionary biology
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Arabidopsis AtCNGC10 rescues potassium channel mutants of E. coli, yeast and Arabidopsis and is regulated by calcium / calmodulin and cyclic GMP in E. coli

Xinli Li A , Tamás Borsics A , H. Michael Harrington A and David A. Christopher A B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A University of Hawaii, Department of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering 1955 East–West Road, Agsciences 218 Honolulu, HI 96822, Hawaii.

B Corresponding author. Email: dchr@hawaii.edu

Functional Plant Biology 32(7) 643-653 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP04233
Submitted: 14 December 2004  Accepted: 15 April 2005   Published: 7 July 2005

Abstract

We have isolated and characterised AtCNGC10, one of the 20 members of the family of cyclic nucleotide (CN)-gated and calmodulin (CaM)-regulated channels (CNGCs) from Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. AtCNGC10 bound CaM in a C-terminal subregion that contains a basic amphiphillic structure characteristic of CaM-binding proteins and that also overlaps with the predicted CN-binding domain. AtCNGC10 is insensitive to the broad-range K+ channel blocker, tetraethylammonium, and lacks a typical K+-signature motif. However, AtCNGC10 complemented K+ channel uptake mutants of Escherichia coli (LB650), yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae CY162) and Arabidopsis (akt1-1). Sense 35S-AtCNGC10 transformed into the Arabidopsis akt1-1 mutant, grew 1.7-fold better on K+-limited medium relative to the vector control. Coexpression of CaM and AtCNGC10 in E. coli showed that Ca2+ / CaM inhibited cell growth by 40%, while cGMP reversed the inhibition by Ca2+ / CaM, in a AtCNGC10-dependent manner. AtCNGC10 did not confer tolerance to Cs+ in E. coli, however, it confers tolerance to toxic levels of Na+ and Cs+ in the yeast K+ uptake mutant grown on low K+ medium. Antisense AtCNGC10 plants had 50% less potassium than wild type Columbia. Taken together, the studies from three evolutionarily diverse species demonstrated a role for the CaM-binding channel, AtCNGC10, in mediating the uptake of K+ in plants.

Keywords: Arabidopsis, calmodulin, CNGC, complementation, cyclic nucleotide, K+ channel.


Acknowledgments

This research was supported by funds from the USA Department of Energy grant No. DE-FG02–03ER15395 to DAC.


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