Plant hormones are transported across cell membranes during various physiological events. Recent identification of abscisic acid and strigolactone transporters suggests that transport of various plant hormones across membranes does not occur by simple diffusion but requires transporter proteins that are strictly regulated during development. Here, we report that a major glucosinolate transporter, GTR1/NPF2.10, is multifunctional and may be involved in hormone transport in
Arabidopsis thaliana
. When heterologously expressed in oocytes, GTR1 transports jasmonoyl-isoleucine and gibberellin in addition to glucosinolates.
gtr1
mutants are severely impaired in filament elongation and anther dehiscence resulting in reduced fertility, but these phenotypes can be rescued by gibberellin treatment. These results suggest that GTR1 may be a multifunctional transporter for the structurally distinct compounds glucosinolates, jasmonoyl-isoleucine and gibberellin, and may positively regulate stamen development by mediating gibberellin supply.
Curcumin has received immense attention over the past decades because of its diverse biological activities and recognized as a promising drug candidate in a large number of diseases. However, its clinical application has been hindered due to extremely low aqueous solubility, chemical stability, and cellular uptake. In this study, we discovered quite a new function of curcumin, i.e. pH-responsive endosomal disrupting activity, derived from curcumin’s self-assembly. We selected anticancer activity as an example of biological activities of curcumin, and investigated the contribution of pH-responsive property to its anticancer activity. As a result, we demonstrated that the pH-responsive property significantly enhances the anticancer activity of curcumin. Furthermore, we demonstrated a utility of the pH-responsive property of curcumin as delivery nanocarriers for doxorubicin toward combination cancer therapy. These results clearly indicate that the smart curcumin assemblies act as promising nanoplatform for development of curcumin-based therapeutics.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.