Ion transport is the major determining factor of salinity tolerance in plants. A simple scheme of a plant cell with ion fluxes provides basic understanding of ion transport and the corresponding changes of ion concentrations under salinity. The review describes in detail basic principles of ion transport for a plant cell, introduces set of transporters essential for sodium and potassium uptake ...

Copyright © 2016 Kallesh D. Jayappa et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Cancer cell interaction with microenvironment plays a very important role in cancer cell survival, proliferation, and/or metastasis. The ca...

In the central nervous system, electrogenic sodium- and potassium-coupled glutamate transporters terminate the synaptic actions of this neurotransmitter. In contrast to acidic amino acids, dicarboxylic acids are not recognized by glutamate transporters, but the related bacterial DctA transporters are capable of transporting succinate and other dicarboxylic acids. Transmembrane domain 8 contains...

In plants, the nitrate transporters, NRT1.1 and NRT2.1, are mainly responsible for nitrate uptake. Intriguingly, both nitrate transporters are located in a complementary manner in different cells layers of the mature root suggesting that their coordination should occur during nitrate uptake and plant growth. This hypothesis was examined on 5-d-old rape seedlings grown on agar medium supplemente...

During sexual reproduction of flowering plants, the pollen tube grows fast and over a long distance within the pistil to deliver two sperms for double fertilization. Growing plant cells need to communicate constantly with external stimuli as well as monitor changes in surface tension of the cell wall and plasma membrane to coordinate these signals and internal growth machinery; however, the und...

Curcumin [1,7-bis(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-1,6-heptadiene-3,5-dione], a polyphenolic compound isolated from the rhizomes of Curcuma longa (turmeric), has been shown to exhibit a wide range of pharmacological activities including anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, anti-atherosclerotic, anti-microbial, and wound healing effects. These activities of curcumin are based on its complex m...