An Arabidopsis peptide transporter is a member of a new class of membrane transport proteins.

An Arabidopsis peptide transport gene was cloned from an Arabidopsis cDNA library by functionally complementing a yeast peptide transport mutant. The Arabidopsis plant peptide transporter (AtPTR2) allowed growth of yeast cells on dipeptides and tripeptides but not peptides four residues and higher. The plant peptide transporter also conferred sensitivity to a number of ethionine-containing, toxic peptides of chain length three or less and restored the ability to take up radiolabeled dileucine at levels similar to that of the wild type. Dileucine uptake was reduced by the addition of a variety of growth-promoting peptides. The sequence of a cDNA insert of 2.8 kb indicated an open reading frame encoding a 610-amino acid polypeptide (67.5 kD). Hydropathy analysis predicted a highly hydrophobic protein with a number of potential transmembrane segments. At the amino acid level, the Arabidopsis plant peptide transporter shows 24.6, 28.5, and 45.2% identity to the Arabidopsis nitrate-inducible nitrate transporter (CHL1), the rabbit small intestine oligopeptide transporter (PepT1), and the yeast peptide transporter (Ptr2p), respectively, but little identity to other proteins known to be involved in peptide transport. Root growth of Arabidopsis seedlings exposed to ethionine-containing toxic peptides was inhibited, and growth was restored by the addition of certain peptides shown to compete with dileucine uptake in yeast expressing the Arabidopsis transport gene. Consistent with the observed inhibition of root growth by toxic peptides, the peptide transporter is expressed in the roots of Arabidopsis seedlings. This study represents the characterization of a plant peptide transporter that is a member of a new class of related membrane transport proteins.