Abstract
Plants have various mechanisms to regulate ion homeostasis in salinity. High-affinity potassium uptake system plays an important role under the salt stress condition, but the molecular mechanism is still unclear. KT/HAK/KUP family is a major potassium transporter family which is conserved among bacteria, fungi and plant. The aim of this research is to identify the HAK transporters taking charge of potassium uptake in rice.
5 HAK genes (OsHAK1, 7, 11, 12, and16) which transcripts accumulated during potassium starvation or salt stress were selected with the real time PCR experiment. To examine the potassium ion transport activity of those 5 OsHAK genes, complementation test was carried out with E. coli and yeast mutant strain that is deficient of high-affinity potassium transporters. Sub-cellular localization was investigated by transient expression assay of OsHAK;GFP with T87 cells. We are now analyzing the tissue localization by in situ hybridization.
