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Physiology

Nitrate at the ion exchange

Nature volume 442, pages 877–878 (2006)Cite this article

The distinction between CLC ion channels and ion exchangers has become blurred. The physiological role of CLC exchangers has been a mystery, but one function is evidently to concentrate nitrate in plant vacuoles.

The cell membranes of all self-respecting cells contain ion channels that allow the selective flow of, for example, sodium or potassium, or anions such as chloride, into and out of the cell. Only a couple of years ago, a startling discovery was made that certain predicted chloride channels — specifically, members of the CLC family — function not as passive chloride-selective ion channels, but as proton–chloride exchangers that transport protons and chloride anions in opposite directions across cell membranes1,2,3. But a mystery has remained: why do these CLCs carry out the proton–anion exchange shuffle?

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Figure 1: Nitrate accumulation in plant vacuoles mediated by the proton–nitrate (H+–NO3−) exchanger AtCLCa.

Notes

  1. This article and the paper concerned4 were published online on 26 July 2006.

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  1. Division of Biological Sciences, Cell and Developmental Biology Section, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, 92093-0116, California, USA

    Julian I. Schroeder

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Schroeder, J. Nitrate at the ion exchange. Nature 442, 877–878 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04999

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