Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 13, 2025

Measuring Fluxes of Mineral Nutrients and Toxicants in Plants with Radioactive Tracers
Published on: August 22, 2014
Two NPF transporters mediate iron long-distance transport and homeostasis in Arabidopsis
Si-Ying Chen1,2, Tian-Yu Gu1,3, Zi-Ai Qi1,2
1National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China.
Abstract:
Iron (Fe) transport and reallocation are essential to Fe homeostasis in plants, but it is unclear how Fe homeostasis is regulated, especially under stress. Here we report that NPF5.9 and its close homolog NPF5.8 redundantly regulate Fe transport and reallocation in Arabidopsis. NPF5.9 is highly upregulated in response to Fe deficiency. NPF5.9 expresses preferentially in vasculature tissues and localizes to the trans-Golgi network, and NPF5.8 showed a similar expression pattern. Long-distance Fe transport and allocation into aerial parts was significantly increased in NPF5.9-overexpressing lines. In the double mutant npf5.8 npf5.9, Fe loading in aerial parts and plant growth were decreased, which were partially rescued by Fe supplementation. Further analysis showed that expression of PYE, the negative regulator for Fe homeostasis, and its downstream target NAS4 were significantly altered in the double mutant. NPF5.9 and NPF5.8 were shown to also mediate nitrate uptake and transport, although nitrate and Fe application did not reciprocally affect each other. Our findings uncovered the novel function of NPF5.9 and NPF5.8 in long-distance Fe transport and homeostasis, and further indicated that they possibly mediate nitrate transport and Fe homeostasis independently in Arabidopsis.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Short-distance Transport of Resources
Protein Transport to the Inner Chloroplast Membrane
Carrier-Mediated Transport
Active transport involves two types of membrane-spanning transporters: uptake and efflux. Uptake transporters are expressed in the small...
Water and Mineral Acquisition
The Apoplast and Symplast
Membrane Transporters
Transporters are mainly composed of alpha-helices, built from bundles of ten or more helices traversing the plasma membrane. The solute-binding sites are located midway, where some of the helices are broken or distorted, making space for the binding site through...

