Regulation of plasma membrane H+-ATPase in fungi and plants

Abstract

The plasma membrane H⁺-ATPase from fungi and plants is a proton pump which plays a key role in the physiology of these organisms controlling essential functions such as nutrient uptake and intracellular pH regulation. In fungal and plant cells the activity of the proton pump is regulated by a large number of environmental factors at both transcriptional and post-translational levels. During the last years the powerful tools of molecular biology have been successfully used in fungi and plants allowing the cloning of a wide diversity of H⁺-ATPase genes and rapid progress on the molecular basis of reaction mechanism and regulation of the proton pump. This review focuses on recent results on regulation of plasma membrane H⁺-ATPase obtained by molecular approaches.