Apicomplexans are obligate intracellular parasites that scavenge essential nutrients from their hosts via transporter proteins on their plasma membrane. The identities of the transporters that mediate amino acid uptake into apicomplexans are unknown. Here we demonstrate that members of an apicomplexan-specific protein family-the Novel Putative Transporters (NPTs)-play key roles in the uptake of...

Amino acid transporters and mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) signaling are important contributors to muscle protein anabolism. Aging is associated with reduced mTORC1 signaling following resistance exercise, but the role of amino acid transporters is unknown. Young (n = 13; 28 ± 2 yr) and older (n = 13; 68 ± 2 yr) subjects performed a bout of resistance exercise. Skeletal muscle...

Nitric oxide synthesis depends on the availability of its precursor L-arginine, which could be regulated by the presence of a specific uptake system. In the present report, the characterization of the L-arginine transport system in mouse adrenal Y1 cells was performed. L-arginine transport was mediated by the cationic/neutral amino acid transport system y+L and the cationic amino acid transport...

Experiments were performed to determine whether L-arginine transport regulates nitric oxide (NO) production and hemodynamics in the renal medulla. The effects of renal medullary interstitial infusion of cationic amino acids, which compete with L-arginine for cellular uptake, on NO levels and blood flow in the medulla were examined in anesthetized rats. NO concentration in the renal inner medull...

Increased production of nitric oxide (NO) is thought to be a factor in the pathogenesis of many human diseases - among them the hypotension that often accompanies sepsis. The supply of the cationic amino acid arginine is known to be rate-limiting for NO production. We hypothesized that cationic amino acid transport might be increased in cells producing excess NO from patients with septic shock....

We have identified the third member of a family of cationic amino acid transporters in lipopolysaccharidestimulated murine macrophages. The deduced amino acid sequence of this transporter is the same as MCAT-2 (mouse cationic amino acid transporter-Z), the low affinity transporter expressed in hepatocytes, except for a stretch of 41 amino acids that connects the eighth and ninth membrane-spanni...

Cationic amino acid transport activity in a canine lens epithelial cells (LEC) line was investigated. The transporter activity of arginine was 0.424 ± 0.047 nmol/mg protein min, while the presence of N-ethylmaleimide, an inhibitor of the canine cationic amino acid transporter (CAT), reduced transport activity by 30%. A full-length cDNA sequence of canine CAT1 was 2558 bp long and was predicted ...