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Calendar Name: seminars
Scheduled for: Tuesday, June 7 2011, 11:00 - 12:30
Event text:    Prof François Chaumont
	       
	       Institut des Sciences de la Vie
	       Université catholique de Louvain
	       
	       Louvain-la-Neuve 
	       Belgium
Details:       “Plasma membrane aquaporins: a highly regulated plumbing
	       system”
	       
	       ABSTRACT
	       Aquaporins are channels facilitating the movement of
	       water and/or uncharged solutes across membranes in all
	       kingdoms of life. Plant aquaporins constitute a large
	       and highly divergent protein family, and members of
	       several subfamilies are found in the plasma membrane.
	       Recently, we characterized proteins from a new subfamily
	       (XIP or X Intrinsic proteins) found in Solanaceae but
	       absent from Arabidopsis and monocots and showed that
	       they facilitate the transport of many uncharged
	       substrates. Besides this new aquaporin subfamily, the
	       most studied plant plasma membrane aquaporins are the
	       PIPs (Plasma membrane Intrinsic Proteins) that control
	       cellular water movement in many different physiological
	       processes. Using molecular and biophysical approaches,
	       we showed that the expression and activity of the PIPs
	       are regulated in Zea mays roots and leaves according to
	       the developmental stages, day/night cycle and in
	       response to short-term osmotic stress. Beyond the
	       initial regulatory step of controlling gene and protein
	       expression, different mechanisms have been reported to
	       regulate the traffic and gating of PIPs. Maize
	       aquaporins belonging to PIP1 and PIP2 groups formed
	       hetero-oligomers to regulate the traffic of ZmPIP1 from
	       the endoplasmic reticulum to the plasma membrane. In
	       addition, a conserved cysteine residue located in an
	       extra-cytosolic loop is involved in a disulfide bridge
	       formation between two monomers forming a dimer. The
	       delivery of ZmPIP2s to the plasma membrane involves also
	       interaction with the syntaxin SYP121. Altogether the
	       data point toward a complex and highly integrated
	       regulation of PIP trafficking and activity in the
	       maintenance of cellular water homeostasis.

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