2 research outputs found
Exploring the Substrate Specificity of a Sugar Transporter with Biosensors and Cheminformatics
Sugars will eventually be exported transporters (SWEETs)
are conserved
sugar transporters that play crucial roles in plant physiology and
biotechnology. The genomes of flowering plants typically encode about
20 SWEET paralogs that can be classified into four clades. Clades
I, II, and IV have been reported to favor hexoses, while clade III
SWEETs prefer sucrose. However, the molecular features of substrates
required for recognition by members of this family have not been investigated
in detail. Here, we show that SweetTrac1, a previously reported biosensor
constructed from the Clade I Arabidopsis thaliana SWEET1, can provide insight into the structural requirements for
substrate recognition. The biosensor translates substrate binding
to the transporter into a change in fluorescence, and its application
in a small-molecule screen combined with cheminformatics uncovered
12 new sugars and their derivatives capable of eliciting a response.
Furthermore, we confirmed that the wild-type transporter mediates
cellular uptake of three of these species, including the diabetes
drugs 1-deoxynojirimycin and voglibose. Our results show that SWEETs
can recognize different furanoses, pyranoses, and acyclic sugars,
illustrating the potential of combining biosensors and computational
techniques to uncover the basis of substrate specificity
Exploring the Substrate Specificity of a Sugar Transporter with Biosensors and Cheminformatics
Sugars will eventually be exported transporters (SWEETs)
are conserved
sugar transporters that play crucial roles in plant physiology and
biotechnology. The genomes of flowering plants typically encode about
20 SWEET paralogs that can be classified into four clades. Clades
I, II, and IV have been reported to favor hexoses, while clade III
SWEETs prefer sucrose. However, the molecular features of substrates
required for recognition by members of this family have not been investigated
in detail. Here, we show that SweetTrac1, a previously reported biosensor
constructed from the Clade I Arabidopsis thaliana SWEET1, can provide insight into the structural requirements for
substrate recognition. The biosensor translates substrate binding
to the transporter into a change in fluorescence, and its application
in a small-molecule screen combined with cheminformatics uncovered
12 new sugars and their derivatives capable of eliciting a response.
Furthermore, we confirmed that the wild-type transporter mediates
cellular uptake of three of these species, including the diabetes
drugs 1-deoxynojirimycin and voglibose. Our results show that SWEETs
can recognize different furanoses, pyranoses, and acyclic sugars,
illustrating the potential of combining biosensors and computational
techniques to uncover the basis of substrate specificity