Role of Na~+ in Plant Cells

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

It is well known that Na^+ is not an essential element for most plants. Except for the salt tolerance, therewas almost no work on Na^+ metabolism, Na^+ transport in plant cells. Recently, we have found that Na^+ may play some important roles in plant life, too. In the present study, we focused roles of Na^+ in plant cell functions. We mainly investigated about Na^+ membrane transport systems, intracellular distribution of Na^+ and recognition of Na^+ environment by plant cells.We have found that under Pi deficiency, Chara cells induced Na^+ driven Pi uptake system in the plasma membrane and its physiological transport mechanism was analyzed. Furthermore, we found that the induction of Na^+/Pi cotransport system absolutely needs the presence of extracellular Na^+. Second, under K^+ deficiency, we found that Na^+ is playing an important role for plant growth by being accumulated in the vacuole. Lastly, we found the vacuolar volume quickly increased when mangrove cells are exposed to the salt stress. In this phenomenon, Na^+ transport was partly mediated with the vesicle transport into the vacuole.