Versatile nitrate transport

摘要

Soil levels of nitrate, a primary nutrient for plant growth, can vary dramatically so plants need a versatile mechanism for obtaining nitrate from the environment. In the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the dual-affinity transporter NRT1.1 can take up nitrate across a broad range of concentrations, switching from low- to high-affinity mode according to the phosphorylation status of a key threonine residue. Two studies now describe the crystal structures of full-length NRT1.1, providing insights into how this post-translational modification switches the transporter between the low-affinity and high-affinity states.