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Updated: Mar 7, 2026

Translating Ribosome Affinity Purification TRAP to Investigate Arabidopsis thaliana Root Development at a Cell Type-Specific Scale
Published on: May 14, 2020
Substrate (un)specificity of Arabidopsis NRT1/PTR FAMILY (NPF) proteins
Claire Corratgé-Faillie1, Benoît Lacombe1
1Biochimie et Physiologie Moléculaire des Plantes, UMR CNRS/INRA/SupAgro/UM, Institut de Biologie Intégrative des Plantes "Claude Grignon"place Viala, 34060 Montpellier, France.
Abstract:
The conventional approach to categorizing transporters has been to class them according to their sequence homology, defining a 'family' (or a 'superfamily' if they are numerous), and according to their substrate specificity or selectivity. This general view is still relevant for some transporters, but it is being increasingly challenged. Here, we take the NRT1/PTR FAMILY (NPF) as one such example. NPF members do indeed display sequence and structural homologies with peptide transporter (PTR) proteins involved in the uptake of di- and tri-peptides in most other organisms. And in plants they were initially characterized as nitrate or peptide transporters. However, in recent years several other substrates have been identified, namely nitrite, chloride, glucosinolates, auxin (IAA), abscisic acid (ABA), jasmonates (JAs), and gibberellins (GAs). Some of these transporters are even capable of transporting more than one different substrate (e.g. nitrate/auxin, nitrate/ABA, nitrate/glucosinolates, or GA/JA). In this review, we give an overview of the substrate-specificity of the Arabidopsis NPF.
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