Citations 1
Transport proteins NHA1 and NHA2 are essential for survival, but have distinct transport modalities
Chintapalli, Venkateswara R., Kato, Akira , Hirata, Taku, Woods, Debra J., Overend, Gayle , Davies, Shireen A. , Romero, Michael F. , Dow, Julian A. T. , Henderson, Louise, Dow, Julian A T , Romero, Michael F , Kato, Akira
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | August 31, 2015 | Volume: 112 | Issue: 37 | Pages: 11720-11725
Significance Cation/proton antiporters (CPAs) are essential to life. The sodium/proton exchanger (NHE) branch of the CPA family has been studied exhaustively and is an important drug target; however, much less is known about the recently discovered NHA branch, represented by two genes in both humans and flies. Here we show that sodium/hydrogen antiporter (NHA) function is essential to life, and that both NHAs protect against salt stress. Their transport mechanisms are radically different, however, suggesting that function cannot be inferred from structural similarity. Although NHA2 was found to be a Na + /H + exchanger as expected, NHA1 was seen to act as an electroneutral H + /Cl - cotransporter. This is an important finding for future studies of these transporters.