Research

Cobbett Lab

Topic 2: Major Facilitator Superfamily transporters have an unexpected role in zinc homeostasis

A new mutant is zinc-sensitive and accumulates higher levels of zinc in shoots. The mutation is in a gene encoding a member of the MFS family of transporters. Work in this area is aimed at identifying the role of this transporter in zinc homeostasis.

Figure 1. Zn sensitvity of mfs1. Wild-type and mfs1 were germinated on minimal media (MM), and 7 day old seedlings were transferred to MM or MM containing 100 µM Zn. Photographs were taken of 17 day old seedlings.

Figure 2. Shoot Zn content of mfs1. Wild-type and mfs1 were grown on minimal media (MM) containing 0 or 10 µM Zn for 3 weeks. Zn content in shoots was determined by ICP-AES. Values are mean ±SEM, n=4. * denotes significant difference from wild-type, determined by t-test (p<0.01).

Topic 1: Heavy Metal Transporting P-type ATPases are essential for zinc homeostasis

Topic 3: Glutathione is essential for growth and development and plays an important role in responses to heavy metal stress

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