Membrane Transport In Plants

Concentrates solely on the latest advances and achievements in plant physiology. Six page papers by prominent lecturers are grouped together with one to two page abstracts of related poster communications in nine sections dealing with various topics of plant transport studies.

Water Relations in Membrane Transport in Plants and Animals contains the presentations in a symposium dealing with Water Relations in Membranes in Plants and Animals, during the 27th Annual Fall Meeting of the American Physiological Society held at The University of Pennsylvania, 17-19 August 1976. The purpose of the symposium was to explore the common modes of water regulation in plants and animals. In these proceedings, the mechanisms employed to restrict water flow across plant and metazoan animal cells are described. Putative differences in mechanisms of water regulation retained by plant versus animal cells become inconsequential in the light of the numerous similarities: dependence upon bioelectric potentials maintained across cell membranes, energy dependence of uphill water movement, and solute coupling during water transport. The presentations can be organized into four. The first takes up specific mechanisms of water transport in plants. The second and third parts deal with specific mechanisms in invertebrates and vertebrates, respectively. The fourth part covers generalized mechanisms common to plants and animals.

In plant cells, the plasma membrane is a highly elaborated structure that functions as the point of exchange with adjoining cells, cell walls and the external environment. Transactions at the plasma membrane include uptake of water and essential mineral nutrients, gas exchange, movement of metabolites, transport and perception of signaling molecules, and initial responses to external biota. Selective transporters control the rates and direction of small molecule movement across the membrane barrier and manipulate the turgor that maintains plant form and drives plant cell expansion. The plasma membrane provides an environment in which molecular and macromolecular interactions are enhanced by the clustering of proteins in oligimeric complexes for more efficient retention of biosynthetic intermediates, and by the anchoring of protein complexes to promote regulatory interactions. The coupling of signal perception at the membrane surface with intracellular second messengers also involves transduction across the plasma membrane. Finally, the generation and ordering of the external cell walls involves processes mediated at the plant cell surface by the plasma membrane. This volume is divided into three sections. The first section describes the basic mechanisms that regulate all plasma membrane functions. The second describes plasma membrane transport activity. The final section of the book describes signaling interactions at the plasma membrane. These topics are given a unique treatment in this volume, as the discussions are restricted to the plasma membrane itself as much as possible. A more complete knowledge of the plasma membrane’s structure and function is essential to current efforts to increase the sustainability of agricultural production of food, fiber, and fuel crops.

In February, 1974, an 'International Workshop on Membrane Transport in Plants' was held at the Nuclear Research Centre, JLiI ich, West Germany. More than two hundred and fifty people, from fourteen countries, took part in this highly successful meeting. A somewhat similar meeting took place in Liverpool, England, two years ago and it became clear there that progress in the field of membrane transport in plants was now so marked that a second, and wider, meeting in Germany was more than fully justified. The members of our pro gramme committee (U. Zimmermann, Chairman, JLilich (FRG); J. Dainty,