The seminars take place on the Montpellier Institut Agro/INRAE Campus of La Gaillarde (2, place P. Viala Montpellier)

Thursday, June 22 2023

at 2 pm – Amphi 2 (Bât. 2bis)

Edgar Peiter

(Halle University, Germany)

An organellar journey – mechanisms of intracellular calcium and manganese distribution in plants and crops

Bivalent cations like Ca2+ and Mn2+ fulfil a plethora of functions in signalling and metabolism of plants, that all demand them to be transported to their sites of action in diverse compartments. Conversely, superfluous availabililty of those cations is problematic and requires their disposal in the apoplast or in organelles. Distribution of the cations is mediated by transport proteins with overlapping selectivities. In recent years, we have identified a number of transporters belonging to different families that are key players in cation homeostasis. For example, Mn2+ and Ca2+ movement into chloroplasts and Golgi vesicles is mediated by BICAT family members and essential for processes taking place in these compartments, including photosynthesis and matrix polysaccharide biosynthesis. In cooperation with Ca2+/Mn2+ pumps, BICATs also contribute to Ca2+ signalling. Proteins of the MTP family are crucial for metal cation detoxification under various circumstances and have recently also emerged as players in the Fe deficiency response. Our basic understanding of BICAT and MTP transporters and of their functional roles has been primarily derived from work on Arabidopsis. Besides mechanisms in this model species, I will present recent studies on two crop species revealing that the MTP transporter toolbox is employed with a high versatility that cannot be directly inferred from the Arabidopsis model.

Contact: Tou-Cheu Xiong

Contacts IBIP :

Sabine Zimmermann (sabine.zimmermann@cnrs.fr)

Alexandre Martiniere (alexandre.martiniere@cnrs.fr)

Aude Coupel-Ledru (aude.coupel-ledru@inrae.fr)

Chantal Baracco (chantal.baracco@inrae.fr)