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Comparative studies on Ureide Permeases in Arabidopsis thaliana and analysis of two alternative splice variants of AtUPS5

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Abstract

The recovery of free purine and pyrimidine bases and their degradation products represent alternative pathways in plant cells either to synthesize nucleotides (salvage pathways) by low energy consumption or to reuse organic nitrogen. Such recycling of metabolites often requires their uptake into the cell by specialized transport systems residing in the plasma membrane. In plants, it has been suggested that several protein families are involved in this process, but only a few transporters have so far been characterized. In this work, gene expression, substrate specificities, and transport mechanisms of members of the Ureide Permease family in Arabidopsis (AtUPS) were analyzed and compared. Promoter-GUS studies indicated that the members of the family have distinct and partially overlapping expression patterns with regard to developmental stages or tissue specific localization. In addition, two alternative splice variants of AtUPS5, a novel member of the transporter family, were identified and investigated. The abundance of both alternative mRNAs varied in different organs, while the relative amounts were comparable. AtUPS5l (longer isoform) shares similar structural prediction with AtUPS1 and AtUPS2. In contrast, AtUPS5s (shorter isoform) lacks two transmembrane domains as structural consequence of the additional splice event. When expressed in yeast, AtUPS5l mediates cellular import of cyclic purine degradation products and pyrimidines similarly to AtUPS1 and AtUPS2, but differences in transport efficiencies were observed. AtUPS5s, however, could not be shown to mediate uptake of these compounds into yeast cells and might therefore be defective or have a different function.

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Acknowledgement

We thank the members of the plant physiology laboratory at ZMBP for helpful discussions and comments on the manuscript and Felicity de Courcy for editorial assistance. We also thank Michael Fitz for excellent technical help. This work was supported by a grant to M.D. from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DE 817/1-1) and a grant to W.B.F. from the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF, GABI-GENOPLANTE).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Plant Molecular Biology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Anja Schmidt, Nadine Baumann, Alexander Schwarzkopf & Marcelo Desimone

  2. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford, USA

    Wolf B. Frommer

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  1. Anja Schmidt
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  2. Nadine Baumann
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Correspondence to Marcelo Desimone.

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Schmidt, A., Baumann, N., Schwarzkopf, A. et al. Comparative studies on Ureide Permeases in Arabidopsis thaliana and analysis of two alternative splice variants of AtUPS5 . Planta 224, 1329–1340 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-006-0315-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-006-0315-z

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