Structure Function Studies Of A Plant Non Selective Cation Channel Involved In Drough Tolerance

Membrane transport proteins mediate the passage of ions and other hydrophilic molecules across plant membranes. These substrates are essential for plant homeostasis, growth, development, and stress responses. Although many of these proteins have been shown to underlie key agronomic traits involved in plant abiotic stress response, the fundamental biochemical, functional, and structural characteristics of these proteins are largely unknown. CROPS (Center for Research On Plant TransporterS) is an NSF-PG funded initiative dedicated to provide a pipeline for structure-function studies of plant membrane transport proteins involved in key agronomical traits. Here were present recent results obtained for a non-selective cation channel from crop-plant, involved in mediating Ca2+signaling during drought stress response. We have successfully purified the protein from Pichia pastoris, and demonstrate their functionality using droplet-interface bilayer technique, and determined their oligomeric state in proteoliposomes by subunit-counting using Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy. This work was funded by NSFPG Award # 1444435; http://crops.ucsd.edu/