A comprehensive biophysical model of ion and water transport in plant roots. III. quantifying the energy costs of ion transport in salt-stressed roots of Arabidopsis
Date
2020
Authors
Foster, K.J.
Miklavcic, S.J.
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Journal article
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Frontiers in Plant Science, 2020; 11:1-15
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Abstract
Salt stress defense mechanisms in plant roots, such as active Na+ efflux and storage, require energy in the form of ATP. Understanding the energy required for these transport mechanisms is an important step toward achieving an understanding of salt tolerance. However, accurate measurements of the fluxes required to estimate these energy costs are difficult to achieve by experimental means. As a result, the magnitude of the energy costs of ion transport in salt-stressed roots relative to the available energy is unclear, as are the relative contributions of different defense mechanisms to the total cost.
We used mathematical modeling to address three key questions about the energy costs of ion transport in salt-stressed Arabidopsis roots: are the energy requirements calculated on the basis of flux data feasible; which transport steps are the main contributors to the total energy costs; and which transport processes could be altered to minimize the total energy costs? Using our biophysical model of ion and water transport we calculated the energy expended in the trans-plasma membrane and trans-tonoplast transport of Na+, K+, Cl−, and H+ in different regions of a salt-stressed model Arabidopsis root.
Our calculated energy costs exceeded experimental estimates of the energy supplied by root respiration for high external NaCl concentrations. We found that Na+ exclusion from, and Cl− uptake into, the outer root were the major contributors to the total energy expended. Reducing the leakage of Na+ and the active uptake of Cl− across outer root plasma membranes would lower energy costs while enhancing exclusion of these ions. The high energy cost of ion transport in roots demonstrates that the energetic consequences of altering ion transport processes should be considered when attempting to improve salt tolerance.
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Data source: Supplementary material, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.00865
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Copyright 2020 Foster and Miklavcic. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.