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The Plant Journal (1994) 6(1), 67-77 SUC1 and SUC2: two sucrose transporters from Arabidopsis thaliana; expression and characterization in baker's yeast and identification of the histidinetagged protein Norbert Sauer* and JLirgen Stolz Lehrstuhl f~r Zellbiologie und Pflanzenphysiologie, Universit~t Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany Summary An important, most likely essential step for the long distance transport of sucrose in higher plants is the energy-dependent, uncoupler-sensiUve loading into phloem cells via a sucrose-H+ symporter. This paper describes functional expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae of two cDNAs encoding energy-dependent sucrose transporters from the plasma membrane of Arabidopsis thaliane, SUCl and SUC2. Yeast cells transformed with vectors allowing expression of either SUC1 or SUC2 under the control of the promoter of the yeast plasma membrane ATPase gene (PMA1) transport sucrose, and to a lesser extent also maltose, across their plasma membranes in an energy-dependent manner. The Ku-values for sucrose transport are 0.50 mM and 0.77 mM, respectively, and transport by both proteins is strongly Inhibited by uncouplers such as carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone (CCCP) and dinitrophenol (DNP), or SH-group inhibitors. The VMAXbut not the Ka-values of sucrose transport depend on the energy status of transgenic yeast cells. The two proteins exhibit different patterns of pH dependence with SUC1 being much more active at neutral and slightly acidic pH values than SUC2. The proteins share 78% identical amino acids, their apparent molecular weights are 54.9 kDa and 54.5 kDA, respectively, and both proteins contain 12 putative transmembrane helices. A modified SUCIHis6 cDNA encoding a histidine tag at the SUC1 C-terminus was also expressed in S. cerevisiae. The tagged protein is fully active and is shown to migrate at an apparent molecular weight of 45 kDa on 10% SDS--polyacrylamide gels. Received 14 January 1994; revised 18 March 1994; accepted 30 March 1994. *For correspondence (fax + 49 941 943 3352). Introduction The primary products of photosynthetic CO2 fixation are exported from the chloroplast into the cytosol by the triosephosphate translocator (FI0gge et aL, 1989). There they serve for the synthesis of sucrose, the compound which is used by most higher plants for long distance transport of assimilated carbon. This transport occurs in the sieve elements of the phloem and is necessary for the carbon supply of photosynthetically inactive, often nongreen parts of plants such as roots, fruits, flowers, and very young leaves. Phloem loading of sucrose has been shown to be catalyzed by active, energy-dependent transporters (Dale, 1987; Delrot and Bonnemain, 1981; Komor et al., 1977;) which are presumably located in the plasmalemma of the companion cells and/or the plasmalemma of the actual transporting sieve elements. Data obtained with transgenic plants expressing yeast invertase in the leaf apoplast (von Schaewen et aL, 1990; Sonnewald et aL, 1991) support this model of apoplastic loading. High levels of external invertase hydrolyze sucrose unloaded into the apoplast by the mesophyll cells, thus causing reduced phloem loading, poor root growth, and a concomitant accumulation of carbohydrates in the leaf mesophyll. Unloading of phloem in the sink tissues seems to occur symplastically (Turgeon, 1989) or apoplastically (Wright and Oparka, 1989). In the latter case unloaded sucrose is hydrolyzed by cell wall-bound invertases and the resulting monosaccharides are transported into the sink tissues by specific transporters. Direct evidence for apoplastic unloading has been obtained from recent work on a corn mutant lacking cell wall invertase (Miller and Chourey, 1992). The mutation severely affected starch accumulation in kernels unable to hydrolyze unloaded sucrose. During the last years genes or cDNAs for several transporters have been cloned, which are believed to be involved in the various loading or unloading steps mentioned above. The STP1 gene from Arabidopsis thaliana (Sauer et aL, 1990b) and the MST1 gene from Nicotiana tabacum (Sauer and Stadler, 1993) encode highly similar monosaccharide-H+ symporters. The latter one is expressed almost exclusively in tobacco sink tissues and data from Arabidopsis show that large gene families encoding putative monosaccharide transporters are found in higher plants (Sauer and Tanner, 1993). The function of 6? 68 Norbert Sauer and J(Jrgen Stolz these transporters was confirmed by functional expression in Schizosaccharomyces pombe or Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Sauer et aL, 1990b; Sauer and Stadler, 1993). Riesmeier et aL (1992) reported the complementation cloning in bakers yeast of the pS21 sucrose transporter from spinach, an energy-dependent, active transporter of the plasmalemma. The pS21 protein has a molecular mass of 55 kDa and 12 putative transmembrane helices, which is almost identical to what has been published for the monosaccharide-H ÷ symporters from higher plants (Sauer et aL, 1990b; Sauer and Stadler, 1993). Lemoine et aL (1989) published an apparent molecular mass of 42 kDa for a sucrose transport protein from sugar beet which again is identical to apparent molecular masses reported for higher plant monosaccharide transporters (Sauer and Stadler, 1993). Sequence comparison, however, does not reflect a high similarity between plant mono- and disaccharide transporters. All sucrose transporter activities studied so far seem to have several features in common: their KM-values are in the millimolar range, their pH optima are in the range of pH 5-6, they are sensitive to SH group inhibitors, and they are highly sensitive to uncouplers such as carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone (Buckhout, 1989; Bush, 1990; Delrot, 1989; Riesmeier et a/., 1992). It was not known whether higher plants possess only one single gene for a sucrose transporter or whether two or more transporters are simultaneously active to insure optimal phloem loading, one of the central steps in carbohydrate partitioning. Furthermore it was not understood whether loading of sucrose from the apoplastic space and unloading of sucrose into the apoplastic space are catalyzed by one and the same transporter, e.g. regulated by apoplastic pH, or whether different sucrose transporters are needed for these two transmembrane steps. In this paper we describe the identification of cDNA clones encoding two sucrose transporters from A. thaliana, SUC1 and SUC2, and their functional expression and characterization in S. cerevisiae. We also report on the construction of an active, histidine-tagged SUC1 sucrose transporter and the identification of the tagged protein on SDS-polyacrylamide gels. Results Isolation and characterization of SUC1 and SUC2 cDNA c/ones Screening of an Arabidopsis cDNA library with radiolabeled DNA of the spinach sucrose transporter pS21 (Riesmeier et aL, 1992) resulted in 16 positive clones (Z2001-2016). Some of the clones were lost during purification of the plaques, some had only very short inserts. Only six clones were subcloned into the EcoRI site of pUC19 and sequenced. Two of these clones did not show any similarity to the spinach sucrose transporter. The remaining four clones represented cDNAs which were homologous to the pS21 sequence; however, the sequences of clones pTF2011 and pTF2014 were clearly different from the sequences of pTF2013 and pTF2015, suggesting the existence of at least two putative sucrose transporters in A. thaliana, pTF2011 was the only fulllength cDNA. To obtain a full-length clone for the second group of cDNAs the library was rescreened with a 120 bp EcoRI-Psll fragment from the 5'-end of pTF2013. Out of many positive clones pTF2035 was the longest one and full length. The gene-encoding mRNAs cloned in pTF2011 and pTF2014 was named SUC1, the gene for mRNAs cloned in pTF2013, pTF2015, and pTF2035 was named SUC2. Sequences of the full-length cDNAs are given in Figure 1. The longest open reading frame for SUCt is 1539 bp long encoding a protein of 513 amino acid residues and a calculated molecular weight of 54.9 kDa; the longest open reading frame for SUC2 is 1536 bp long encoding a protein of 512 amino acid residues and a calculated molecular weight of 54.5 kDa. DNA sequences upstream of the start ATGs of SUCI and SUC2are rich in A and T, do not contain other ATG codons, and in the case of SUCI possess a TAA stop codon within the SUC1 translation frame. This all confirms the start ATGs given in Figure 1. The sequence of SUCI ends with 20 A, the sequence of SUC2 with 4 A, which could be the start of a longer poly(A) tail. The SUC1 and SUC2 proteins share a high number of identical amino acids both with each other and with the spinach pS21 sucrose transporter (Figure 2). There is a strong structural similarity between sucrose transporters and monosaccharide transporters since both groups of membrane proteins have 12 putative transmembrane helices (Sauer and Stadler, 1993; Sauer eta/., 1990b). This structural similarity, however, does not continue on the amino acid level. As shown in Figure 2, the three sucrose transporters share between 65 and 77% identical amino acids, the MST1 monosaccharide transporter from tobacco and the STP1 monosaccharide transporter from Arabidopsis share 79%. A comparison between mono- and disaccharide transporters gives only about 20% identical amino acids, which is close to background (Figure 2). Nevertheless, there are a few regions which are conserved between mono- and disaccharide transporters, such as the short cytoplasmic loops between the putative transmembrane helices 2 and 3 (loop 2/3) and the cytoplasmic loops between the helices 8 and 9 (loop 8/9) of the different transporters (Table 1). These loops always contain a short conserved sequence starting with a small, neutral amino acid followed by two positively charged amino acids (consensus sequence: AGRR).This Arabidopsis s u c r o s e transporters 69 Figure 1. Sequences and restriction maps of the EcoRI inserts of pTF2011 and pTF2035 encoding the A. tha/iana sucrose transporters SUC1 (a) and SUC2 (b), respectively. Asparagine residues marked with an asterisk are part of a consensus sequence for possible N-glycosylation (N-X-S or N-X-T). Sequences also contain the EcoRI linkers used for construction of the library (lower case letters) and the restriction sites for BamHI, EcoRI, EcoRV, Hindlll, Pstl and Scal. Boxed sequences give the putative transmembrane helices. 70 Norbert Sauer and JEirgen Stolz 95 Identity SUC1 SUC'2 pS21 STP1 MST1 SUC1 100 SUC2 85.5 77.6 ~64.4 21.9 100 65.9 20.0 18.7 20.3 pS21 79.9 81.8 1001 19.2 19.6 STPl 53.2 "45.9 47.2 100 79.5] 88.6 1001 MST1 52.6 49.8 46.6 Figure 2. Percentageof similarand identicalaminoacid residuesshared by differenttransportersfor mono-and disaccharides. Sequencecomparisonswere performedwith the programBESTFITof the UWGCG DNA-analysissoftware(gapweight,3.0;gap lengthweight,0.1). Values obtained from comparisonsof disaccharidetransportersonly or monosaccharidetransportersonly are boxed (large box and small box, respectively). Table 1. Comparison of conserved sequences in the first and second half of several transporters Putative position in the topological model Protein Amino acid sequence and position in the primary sequence Loop 2/3 SUCI: SUC2: pS21: STPI: MSTI: 96 95 101 106 106 K R R K K Loop 8/9 SUCI: SUC2: pS21: STPI: MSTI: 356 352 362 344 342 Loop 6/7 SUCI: SUC2: pS21: STPI: MSTI: C-terminus SUCI: SUC2: pS21: STPI: MSTI: F F F F L G G G G G RR RR RR RL RL 101 100 106 111 111 Wl G Wl G G L A R WG K L G R KL R KL R MV RRF R RF 361 357 367 349 347 249 248 254 220 218 Q P Q L L WS WT I T V L F L P P I P P PP EP DE DT ET 254 253 259 225 223 496 495 509 472 470 L L L I F P P P F F P P P P P PP PP PP ET TT 501 500 514 477 475 $ S S L L R R R R R sequence at this position has been discussed previously as being typical for a superfamily of transporters (Griffith et aL, 1992; Maiden et aL, 1987). Following transmembrane helices 6 and 12 (loop 6/7 and C-terminus) another pair of conserved sequences has been identified in monosaccharide transporters. At the same positions a pair of conserved sequences is also found in the Arabidopsis sucrose transporters; these sequences, however, are different from those found in STP1 and MST1 (Table 1). For various monosaccharide transporters it has been postulated that their present structure with 12 transmembrane segments might have evolved, by gene duplication and fusion of an ancestral transporter gene which only had six transmembrane helices (Griffith et aL, 1992; Maiden et aL, 1987; Sauer and Tanner, 1993). This is confirmed by several striking sequence conservations between the first and the second half of these monosaccharide transporters. The data presented in Table 1 show that such conserved regions are also found in SUC1, SUC2, and to a lesser extent also in pS21 sucrose transporters. There is one consensus sequence for N-glycosylation found in SUC1 (asparagine 155) and two consensus sequences are found in SUC2 (asparagine residues 154 and 402; Figure 1). SUC2-Asn402 is located in a putative extracellular loop and might therefore be a candidate for N-glycosylation in the endoplasmic reticulum. SUC1Asn155 and SUC2-Asn154 are located at identical positions within longer highly conserved regions of the two proteins and the consensus sequence is also conserved in the spinach pS21 sucrose transporter. The location of this N - N - T consensus sequence within a putative transmembrane helix, however, suggests that this asparagine is not glycosylated in the mature protein. The calculated isoelectric points of the SUC1 and SUC2 sucrose transporters are 9.25 and 9.55, respectively. These values are in the same range as those determined for the spinach pS21 sucrose transporter and the STP1 and MST1 monosaccharide transporters (8.81, 9.49 and 9.26, respectively). Heterologous expression of SUC 1 and SUC2 in baker's yeast For functional investigations SUC1 and SUC2 had to be expressed in yeast cells which had been shown to be excellent expression systems for plant sugar transporters before (Riesmeier et aL, 1992; Sauer and Stadler, 1993; Sauer et aL, 1989, 1990a, 1990b). Baker's yeast grows very efficiently on sucrose as sole carbon source due to secreted invertase which hydrolyzes extracellular sucrose, and the resulting monosaccharides are taken up by a large set of various transporters (Bisson et aL, 1993). The uptake of sucrose by specific transporters has also been reported (Santos et aL, 1982). Both extracellular sucrose hydrolysis by invertase and direct transport of sucrose are strongly repressed during growth in the presence of high concentrations of D-glucose. Thus, glucose-grown wild-type cells of S. cerevisiae should be an excellent system for the characterization of plant sucrose transporters. Arabidopsis sucrose transporters Transformation of S. cerevisiae was performed using the newly constructed NEV-E Escherichia coil~ S. cerevisiae shuttle vector which has a promoter/terminator box of the S. cerevisiae plasma membrane H*-ATPase PMAI gene containing a unique EcoRI cloning site (Figure 3). This vector allows direct insertion of SUC1 and SUC2 cDNAs. The PMA 1 promoter was chosen because it is very active in glucose-grown yeast cells, and the H÷ATPase is one of the most prominent proteins of the plasma membrane. Figure 4 shows that sucrose uptake into S. cerevisiae control cells grown on 2% D-glucose is negligible. Cells expressing either SUC1 or SUC2, however, transport 14C-labeled sucrose at high rates indicating that these two proteins are indeed transporters for the disaccharide sucrose. To exclude the unlikely possibility that this transport is due to secreted invertase activity and subsequent uptake of labeled monosaccharides, transport experiments were repeated in the presence of a large excess of unlabeled D-glucose (10 mM) added to the uptake test 1 rain prior to the labeled sucrose (Figure 4). The results clearly show that an excess of D-glucose does not have an inhibiting effect but rather a stimulating effect on the determined uptake rates by transgenic yeast cells. Thus, cell wall invertase activity can be excluded. In order to study the stimulating effect of D-glucose on sucrose transport apparent VM~X and KM-Values for sucrose uptake by the SUC1 and SUC2 transporters were compared in transformed yeast cells, both in the presence and absence of D-glucose. The KM-values determined are in the range of 0.45-0.77 mM and are in good agreement 71 with values published for sucrose transporters from other organisms (Table 2; Buckhout, 1989; Delrot and Bonnemain, 1981 ; Komor, 1982; Riesmeier et a/., 1992). The effects of D-glucose on the apparent KM-values, however, are neglegible and cannot explain the increased uptake rates. In contrast the apparent VMAXof sucrose transport is increased three- and six-fold for SUC1 and SUC2, respectively. Taken together all these results suggest that uptake of sucrose by SUC1 and SUC2 is energy dependent and that in cells grown on D-glucose the machinery for sucrose metabolism is not sufficiently active to allow maximal energization of the yeast plasma membrane; addition of the optimal carbon source D-glucose energizes the plasma membrane much better resulting in increased transport rates for sucrose with little or no influence on the KM-Values. Similar conclusions were drawn by Bush (1990) from experiments performed with plasma membrane vesicles from sugar beet. In this case changes of the membrane potential Au/influenced only the VMAXand not the KM. .~ 1o ,o S~tJCl /" 9 7 |, 4 EcoRI 1 O- 1 2 4 6 8 10 o o 2 4 6 8 !o time [mini Rgure 4. Uptake of sucrose into transgenic S. cerevisiaecells. Uptake of sucrose into S. cerevisiae cells transformed with NEV2011R (SUC1) or NEV2035R (SUC2) in the presence (e) or absence (O) of 10 mM o-glucose. (11) Shows sucrose uptake into control cells transformed with NEV2011F or NEV2035F (SUC1 or SUC2 in antisense orientation). The sucrose concentration was 1 mM in all experiments, the pH was 5.5. Table 2. KMand VMAXvalues of the SUC1 and SUC2proteins for sucrose transport at pH 5.5 No glucose 10 mM glucose KM VM~X* 450 I~M 45.4 500 I~M 153.8 KM VMAX* *llmol h-1 x g fresh weight. 530 pM 12.0 770 ~M 76.9 SUC 1 Figure 3. The E. coNS. cerevisiaeshuttle vector NEV-E. The E. coNS. cerevisiae shuttle vector NEV-E was used for expression of SUCt and SUC2 proteins in baker's yeast under the control of the S. cerevisiae PMA1 promoter. In the NEV-N and NEV-X vectors the unique EcoFII cloning site is replaced by a Nott or Xhol site, respectively. SUC2 72 Norbert Sauer and JOrgen Stolz Substrate specificity, and sensitivity to inhibitors and pH dependence To determine the substrate specificities of the SUC1 and SUC2 proteins transport of 14C-labeled sucrose was studied in the presence of various other di- and trisaccharides that might be potential substrates for a sucrose transporter. Only maltose inhibits the transport of sucrose, whereas neither lactose nor the trisaccharide raffinose have any influence on the transport rates (Table 3). The glucose derivates cc-phenylglucoside and ~-phenylglucoside both inhibit transport of sucrose by SUC1 and SUC2 which is in clear contrast to what has been published by Hecht et aL (1992). The authors showed a competitive inhibition of sucrose transport by ~-phenylglucoside but not by ~-phenylglucoside and discussed a central role for the ¢z-glycosidic linkage in substrate recognition by the sucrose symporter. Protonophores such as dinitrophenol or carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenyl-hydrazone (CCCP) inhibit sucrose transport catalyzed by the SUC1 and SUC2 proteins (Table 4) confirming the energy dependence of the two transporters. Both transporters are also sensitive to SH group inhibitors such as N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) or p-chloro-mercuriphenylsulphonic acid (PCMPS) which has already been described by various authors (Table 4; Delrot and Bonnemain, 1981 ; Williams et aL, 1992). Whereas the substrate specificities and the sensitivities to certain inhibitors seem to be the same for the SUC1 Table 3. Inhibition of SUC1 and SUC2 sucrose transport by other sugars and SUC2 proteins, their activities at different pH values clearly differ (Figure 5). SUC1 is equally active at pH 5 or 6 and the relative activity decreases to only about 50% when the pH is increased to 7. SUC2 is much more active at acidic pH values with a loss of 80% of the relative activity when the pH is shifted from 5 to 6. At pH 7 SUC2 is almost completely inactive. Both types of pH dependence have already been described for other sucrose transporters, but always just for one specific transporter from one specific plant: a protein studied in plasma membrane vesicles from sugar beet (Bush, 1990) has a pH dependence which is very similar to what is found for SUC1 ; the pH dependence of the pS21 sucrose transporter from spinach (Riesmeier et aL, 1992) is very similar to that of SUC2. Tissue specificity of the expression of SUC1 and SUC2 Northern blot analyses were performed to see in which tissues mRNAs of SUCI and SUC2can be detected (Figure 6). Total RNA was isolated from different tissues of A. thaliana plants, separated on agarose gels, and hybridized to 32p-labeled sequences from the 3'-ends of SUCI and SUC2 cDNA clones pTF2024 and pTF2013, respectively. The highest levels of SUCI and SUC2 mRNA expression were found in the leaves of Arab# dopsis plants, with no significant difference between 100 % activity Sugar added (mM) None Maltose (2) Maltose (10) Lactose (10) Raffinose (10) c~-phenylglucoside (1) ~-phenylglucoside (1) SUC1 SUC2 100 76 33 95 106 18 28 100 74 34 108 93 20 28 Table 4. Sensitivity of SUC1 and SUC2 to inhibitors % activity Inhibitor added (mM) None N-ethylmaleimide (100) PCMPS (100) Dinitrophenol (50) CCCP (50) 0 SUC1 SUC2 100 100 41 44 53 5 61 49 57 4 5 6 7 pH Figure 5. pH dependance of sucrose transport in transgenic yeast cells expressing either SUC1 (O) or SUC2 (0). Measurements were performed at 1 mM sucrose in 25 mM NaPO4 buffer pH 5, 6 or 7; all experiments were performed in the presence of 10 mM D-glucose. Experiments were repeated twice giving identical results. Arabidopsis sucrose transporters young and old rosette leaves. A similar level of SUCl mRNA was seen in roots, a tissue showing hardly any expression of SUC2. Reduced levels of both SUCl and SUC2 mRNAs were found in flowers; hardly any signal could be detected in RNAs isolated from stems. 73 The tagged SUC1-His6 protein could be identified on 10% SDS-polyacrylamide gels when dodecyl-~-D-maltoside (DDM) extracts from a total membrane fraction of SUC1 -His6 expressing yeast cells were allowed to bind to a Ni+-NTA matrix, washed with increasing concentrations Identification of the histidine-tagged protein by SDS-PAGE To obtain biochemical information on one of the two SUC proteins the cDNA clone pTF2011 (SUC1) was modified in such a way that the resulting protein was elongated by five additional histidine residues at the C-terminus. Since the last amino acid residue in the wild-type SUC1 protein is histidine (Figure 1), the modified SUC1 protein ends with six histidine residues in a row (SUC1-His6). This so-called histidine tag (Hochuli et aL, 1988) has been used by other authors for the purification of recombinant membrane proteins using the specific binding of the histidine tag to Ni 2÷nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA) columns (Loddenkotter et aL, 1993; Waeber etaL, 1993; ). After introduction of the additional sequences into the SUCl open reading frame the resulting construct was ligated into the NEV-E vector to allow functional tests of the recombinant protein in S. cerevisiae. Figure 7(a) shows sucrose transport by S. cerevisiae cells expressing SUC1 -His6-mRNA either in sense or in antisense orientation. It is obvious that both activity and energy dependence (= glucose stimulation) of the tagged protein (mRNA in sense orientation) are similar to that of the wild-type SUC1 protein (Figure 4). There is no detectable sucrose transport in cells expressing SUC1His6 mRNA in antisense orientation nor does glucose stimulate the transport of sucrose into control cells (Figure 7a). Figure 6. Northern blot analyses of tissue-specific expression of SUC1 and SUC2 mRNAs. Twenty micrograms of total RNA isolated from different tissues were loaded per lane: yL, young rosette leaves; mL,mature rosette leaves; St, stems; Ro, roots; FI, flowers. The size of the detected mRNA was 2 kbp for both genes. Transcript lengths were determined by comparison with ribosomal RNAs. (a) 6 - SUC1-His6 3 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 time [min] Figure 7. Transport activity of the SUC1 sucrose transporter tagged with five additional C-terminal histidine residues (SUC1-His6) and identification of the tagged protein by purification on Ni*-NTA agarose. (a) Uptake of sucrose at an external pH of 5.5 in the presence (O) or absence (©) of 10 mM D-glucose by yeast cells expressing the SUC1-His6 protein (NSY2011H6R), and uptake by control cells in the absence of D-glucose (n); addition of 10 mM D-glucose to control cells has no effect on sucrose uptake (data not shown). (b) Silver stained SDS-polyacrylamide gel showing the purification of SUC1-His6 from dodecylmaltoside solubilized membrane proteins of NSY2011H6 with Ni*-NTA agarose: flow through (lane 1) and eluates obtained with buffer E (lane 2), 10 mM (lane 3), 20 mM (lane 4), 30 mM (lane 5) and 100 mM imidazole (lane 6). Lane 7 shows the 100 mM imidazole eluate obtained from dodecylmaltoside solubilized total membranes of control cells (JSY301 = RS453 transformed with the NEV-E shuttle vector) which were treated exactly the same way. Ten microliters of each fraction were separated on the SDS gel. 74 Norbert Sauer and JOrgen Stolz of imidazole, and finally eluted from the column with 100 mM imidazole (Figure 7b). The SUC1-His6 protein corresponds to the prominent band at 45 kDa in lane 6 of the protein gel in Figure 7b. The protein is eluted to some extent already during the 20 mM and 30 mM imidazole washes (lanes 4 and 5) but most of the protein is eluted during the 100 mM imidazole washing step. In DDM extracts of identically treated control cells transformed with the NEV-E expression vector alone this band is missing (lane 7). Discussion Full-length cDNAs encoding two sucrose transporters from A. thaliana were cloned and compared with sequences from other mono- and disaccharide transporters (see results). The data suggest that both types of plant transporters, despite their low overall similarities (Figure 2), may have evolved from a common ancestral gene probably coding for a protein with only six transmembrane helices (Maiden et aL, 1987; Marger and Saier, 1993). Purification of a histidine-tagged SUC1 protein (SUC1His6) from transgenic S. cerevisiae allowed for the first time direct identification of a sucrose transporter on 10% SDS-polyacrylamide gels. The apparent molecular weight of 45 kDa is very close to the apparent molecular weight of 42 kDa suggested by Lemoine et aL (1989) from immunological studies. Unpublished work from our own group on the glucose-H + symporter from Chlorella (Sauer and Tanner, 1989) showed that the molecular weight on 10% SDS gels was increased by 2 kDa upon the addition of six C-terminal histidines suggesting that the apparent molecular weight of the untagged SUC1 protein is about 43 kDa. This difference of 12 kDa between the molecular weight calculated from the DNA sequence (55 kDa) and the one determined from SDS gels (43 kDa) compares well with the results from plant monosaccharide transporters such as the tobacco MST1 transporter where the difference is 16 kDa (58 kDa calculated and 42 kDa on SDS gels). Both SUC1 and SUC2 are active, energy-dependent, and probably H+ symporting sucrose transporters as can be seen from the results obtained with transgenic yeast (Figures 4 and 7a). Cells grown on p-glucose as sole carbon source repress the expression of both the transporter and metabolic enzymes for sucrose. As a consequence, sucrose transported into the cells by SUC1 or SUC2 is metabolized only to a limited extent, not allowing optimal energization of the plasma membranes. Addition of D-glucose, which is taken up by glucose uniporters, supplies the cells with enough energy for optimal sucrose transport by a putative sucrose-H* symporter (Table 2). This confirms data from many other laboratories postu- lating that sucrose is transported together with protons (Buckhout, 1989; Delrot and Bonnemain, 1981; Komor el al., 1977; and others). Sensitivities of SUC1 and SUC2 to SH group inhibitors and uncouplers are more or less identical to what has been published for the spinach pS21 sucrose transporter and for other plant sucrose transporters studied in planta (Delrot, 1989, for review; Riesmeier et al., 1992). The strong inhibitory effect of uncouplers such as CCCP also points towards a sucroseH+ symport by SUC1 and SUC2. Studies on the substrate specificities of the two Arabidopsis transporters show that both proteins accept sucrose and maltose but neither lactose nor the trisaccharide raffinose. Both a-phenylglucoside and ~-phenylglucoside inhibit the transport of sucrose very efficiently at concentrations of 1 mM. With the exception of the relatively strong inhibition by I]-phenylglucoside all other specificity data agree with published data on other sucrose transporters (Delrot, 1989). Transport rates in the expression system described using S. cerevisiae and the NEV-E shuttle vector with the yeast PMA 1 promotor are in the same range as the rates described for plant monosaccharide transporters expressed in Schizosaccharomyces pombe (Sauer et al., 1990a, 1990b) or in S. cerevisiae (Sauer and Stadler, 1993) reaching maximal rates of 80-150 I~mol h-~ x g fresh weight (Table 2) and values of 50-100 iJmol h-1 × g fresh weight during standard uptake conditions with 1 mM sucrose under energized conditions. These values are also comparable with sucrose transport rates described in the literature which are between 10 and 500 I~mol h-~ x g fresh weight (for review see Komor, 1982). The differences in transport rates published for the spinach pS21 sucrose transporter (about 2 p~mol h-~ x g fresh weight) and the Arabidopsis SUC1 and SUC2 transporters do not reflect different activities in the plant, since the pS21 transporter reaches similar rates when tested in the expression system which was used for SUC1 and SUC2 (data not shown). It seems that the substrate specificities and inhibitor sensitivities of the various sucrose transporters described from different plants are all comparable regardless of whether they were studied in vesicles, whole plant cells, or in a heterologous system. There are, however, differences in the pH dependences of the sucrose transporters published for different organisms. The sucrose transporter from sugar beet studied by Bush (1990) is fully active between pH 5 and 6, and the activity decreases to about 40% when the pH is increased to 7. On the other hand the activity of the pS21 sucrose transporter from spinach (Riesmeier et aL, 1992) increases with decreasing pH values. Both types of pH dependence are found in the A. thalianasucrose transporters: SUC1 is fully active at pH 5 and 6 and transports with 50% activity at pH 7. The activ- Arabidopsis sucrose transporters ity of SUC2, however, which is very low at pH 7 increases slowly at pH 6 and shows a further, drastic, increase at pH 5. Measurements at lower pH values show an even further increase in activity for SUC2 but not for SUC1 (data not shown). These differences might be important for regulation of the activity of the two sucrose transporters in the plasma membrane of Arabidopsis. According to the theory of apoplastic loading and unloading, sucrose transport is necessary for the unloading of sucrose from the mesophyll cells, for phloem loading and for phloem unloading. It could be that loading and unloading of phloem are catalyzed by one and the same transporter regulated by factors such as the sucrose concentrations on both sides of the membrane or the apoplastic pH. In contrast two sucrose transporters, both expressed in the phloem, might be regulated by these parameters, with one transporter catalyzing primarily the loading, the other transporter the unloading of phloem. Both possibilities would of course imply that sucrose transporters such as SUC1 and SUC2 can also catalyze the efflux of sucrose out of cells under certain conditions. This has to be studied with purified and reconstituted sucrose transporters. Presently we do not even know in which cells SUCI and SUC2 are expressed. First information on the tissue specificities of SUC1 and SUC2 expression was obtained from Northern blot analyses (Figure 7), The highest levels for both sucrose transporter mRNAs were found in rosette leaves of Arabidopsis, supporting the thesis of phloem loading in the green leaves by sucrose transporters. An interesting difference was determined for the expression levels of SUCI and SUC2 mRNAs in roots. Whereas the amount of SUC1 mRNA in roots was similar to the levels found in leaves only tiny amounts of SUC2 mRNA were detectable in this tissue. This might be another indication for different functions of the SUC1 and SUC2 proteins in Arabidopsis plants. Transgenic plants with downregulated expression levels of SUC1 or SUC2 mRNAs and plants expressing ~-glucuronidase under the control of the SUC1 or SUC2 promoters will help to understand the function of these two transporters and to illuminate the processes of carbohydrate partitioning in higher plants. 75 Isolation of SUC 1 and SUC2 cDNA clones A cDNA library of A. thaliana strain Columbia wild-type in :;~gtl0 (Dr Andreas Bachmair; Max-Planck-lnstitut for Z0chtungsforschung, KOln, Germany) was screened with radioactively labeled pS21 cDNA, encoding the spinach sucrose transporter (generouslyprovided by Dr Wolf Frommer; IGF Berlin, Germany). Plaques (100 000) were screened at a density of about 10 000 p.f.u, per 8 cm plate. Plaque hybridizationwas performed at 37°C in 2 x SSC (1 x = 0.15 M NaCI, 0.015 M sodium citrate), 30% formamide, 1 x Denhardt's solution (Denhardt, 1966), 0.1% SDS, and 100 Ilg m1-1 salmon sperm DNA. Hybridized nitrocellulose filters were washed in 1 x SSC/0.1% SDS (w/v) for 30 min at 37°C, and in 0.1 x SSC/0.1% SDS for 30 min at 37°C, followed by exposure to Kodak-X-OmatAR film. Nucleic acid sequencing cDNA clones were sequenced using the method of Sanger et aL (1977). Exonuclease III deletions and subclones of restriction fragments provided complete sequences of all clones. Sequence comparisons were performed using the software of the Heidelberg Unix Sequence Analysis Resources (HUSAR). Construction of yeast expression vectors NEV-X, NEV-E and NEV-N The yeast/E, coil shuttle vector YEp352 (Hill et aL, 1986) was linearized with EcoRI, treated with mung bean nuolease and religated to removethe EcoRI site from the polylinker. Subsequently a 1.95 kb Hindlll fragment from the plasmid pRS1024, with promoter and terminator sequences of the S. cerevisiae plasma membrane ATPase gene PMA1 (Serrano et aL, 1986) was inserted into the unique Hindlll site of the polylinker, resulting in the yeastJE, coil shuttle vector NEV-X. Plasmid pRS1024 is a YEp351 (Hill et aL, 1986) derived plasmid with this Hindlll-fragment in the. polylinker; construction of this promoter/terminator box has been described (Villalba et aL, 1992). The unique Xhol cloning site which separates promoter and terminator sequences in NEV-X was deleted by mung bean nuclease treatment of the linearized plasmid and replaced by an EcoRI or a Notl site. The resulting expression/shuttlevectors (NEV-E, NEV-N and NEV-X, respectively) have a total length of roughly 7200 bp, carry yeast URA3 and ampicillin-resistancegenes as selectable markers and unique cloning sites for EcoRI, Nolt, or Xhol between the promoter and the terminator of the S. cerevisiae PMA 1 gene. Expression of SUC 1 and SUC2 in baker's yeast Experimentalprocedures Yeast, bacteria/strains and plant material For cloning in Escherichia coil we used the strain DH5e¢ (Hanahan, 1983). Expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae was performed with the strain RS453, which had already been used for expressionof monosaccharidetransporters before (Sauer and Stadler, 1993). Plants of Arabidopsis thaliana C24 were grown in the greenhouse. EcoRI inserts of plasmids pTF2011 and pTF2035 containing fulllength cDNA clones of SUC1 and SUC2, respectively,were isolated and ligated directly into the unique EcoRI restriction site of NEV-E. The resulting plasmids NEV2011R and NEV2035R carry their inserts in sense orientation; NEV2011F and NEV2035F carry the inserts in the antisense orientation. Plasmids were transformed into S. cerevisiae strain RS453 (Mata, ade2-1, trpl 1, can1-100, leu2-3,112, his3-1, ura3-52). Transformed yeast cells were named NSY2011R, NSY2011F, NSY2035R and NSY2035F, respectively. 76 Norbert Sauer and JOrgen Stolz Construction of histidine-tagged SUC l Transformation of S. cerevisiae To allow simple identification and purification of the SUC1 protein five additional histidine residues were added to the C-terminal end of SUC1 resulting in a protein with a tail of six histidine residues (his tag): PCR was performed on pTF2011, which carries a full-length cDNA clone of SUC1 in pUC19, using universal sequencing primer and oligonucleotide SUC1/3 (5'- G "ETA GTG AAT TCA GTG GTG GTG GTG GTG GTG GAA TCC TCC CAT GGT CG -3'), which carries one EcoRI t'estriction site, one TCA (antisense for a TGA stop codon), five times GTG (antisense for CAC codon for histidine) and a sequence binding to the last 20 bases of the SUC1 open reading frame. Following extensive restriction digest the resulting 1630 bp EcoRI fragment was ligated directely into the unique EcoRI cloning site of the yeast/ E. coil shuttle vector NEV-E. Orientation was determined by restriction digest and yeast cells (RS453) were transformed with vectors containing the modified SUC1 cDNA in sense orientation (NEV2011H6R) or in antisense orientation (NEV2011H6F). The resulting yeast strains were named NSY2011H6R and NSY2011H6F, respectively. Yeast cells were transformed according to the protocol of Gietz el aL (1992). URA* transformants were identified on 1.8% agar minimal plates (2% glucose, 0.67% yeast nitrogen base without amino acids, and supplements). Identification of histidine-tagged SUC 1 by SDS-PAGE Cells expressing the histidine-tagged SUC1 protein were grown in minimal medium to an ODs78 of 1.0. Cells (200 ml) were harvested, washed once with distilled water, once with buffer K (25mM Tris-HCI pH 7.5, 5mM EDTA), and resuspended in 100 I~1 of buffer K (on ice). In a small glass tube 1 g of glass beads (diameter 0.45 mm) was added to the cells, mixed with 3 I~l of protease inhibitor mix (PIM: 0.1 M phenylmethylsulfonylfluodde and 0.25 M p-amino-benzamidine in dimethyl sulfoxide) and vortexed four times for 30 sec (put on ice between the individual vortexing steps). Homogenized cells were centrifuged for 5 min at 1000 g and the supernatant again for 60 min at 50 000 g. The membrane pellet was resuspended in 420 I~1of buffer 0 (100 mM NaPO4 buffer pH 8.0, 50 mM NaCI) and 2 I~1of PIM, and solubilized for 5 min on ice with 60 ~1 of 20% dodecyl-~-D-maltoside (DDM; Sigma) in buffer 0. The solubilized membranes were mixed with 480 pJ of buffer 0 and centrifuged for 10 rain at 50 000 g and the supernatant was incubated for 1 h at 4°C with 200 td of Ni2+-NTA-agarose in an Eppitube (Quiagen; washed twice with buffer 0). The material was filled into a minicolumn and washed with 2 ml of buffer E (100 mM NaPO4 buffer pH 8.0,250 mM NaCI, 0.05% DDM), 2 ml buffer E with 10 mM imidazole, 10 ml buffer E with 20 mM imidazole, 3 ml buffer E with 30 mM imidazole, and finally 1 ml buffer E with 100 mM imidazole. Ten microliters of each wash were analyzed by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis on 10% gels (Laemmli and King, 1970) and silver stained (Heukeshoven and Dernick, 1988). RNA isolation and Northern blots Total RNA from different tissues of A. thaliana was isolated as described earlier (Sauer et aL, 1990b). RNA was separated on 1% agarose gels containing formaldehyde and transferred to nitrocellulose filters as described by Maniatis et al. (1982). Blots were hybridized to gene-specific 32p-labeled Hincll fragments from the 3'-ends of cDNA clones pTF2024 (331 bp; SUC1) or pTF2013 (292 bp; SUC2). Both fragments covered the last 60 bp of the respective coding sequences plus the entire 3'-untranslated sequences. Conditions for prehybridization, hybridization, and washes were as described (Sauer et al., 1990b). Transport tests For transport tests S. cerevisiae strains NSY2011R/F, NSY2035R/F and NSY2011H6R were grown in minimal medium to an OD57s of 0.5-1,5. For each transport test 20 OD of cells were harvested, washed twice with 25 mM NaPO4 buffer pH 5,5, and resuspended in I ml of the same buffer, Cells were shaken in a rotary shaker at 30°C and tests were started upon addition of 10 p.I of 10 mM ~4C-sucrose (7400 Bq from UJ4C-sucrose: 23.0 GBq mmol-1; Amersham), For certain experiments unlabeled o-glucose (10 raM) was added 1 min prior to the addition of labeled sucrose, Samples were withdrawn at given intervals, filtered on nitrocellulose filters (0.8 I~m pore size) and washed with an excess of cold water, Incorporation of radioactivity was determined by scintillation counting. The analogs a-phenylglucopyranoside and ~-phenylglucopyranoside were generously provided by Dr T,J, Buckhout (University of Kaiserslautern, Germany), For experiments on the pH dependence of sucrose transport cells were treated the same way but washed and resuspended in 25 mM NaPO4 buffer pH 5, 6 or 7. All transport experiments were performed at least twice. 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