Molecular Mechanism of Water and Gas Transport Across Biological Membranes and Consequences for Plant Physiology

Aquaporins are membrane proteins, facilitating the transport of water across biological membranes. At the time of their discovery, biological membranes were thought to be that permeable for water, that there was no need for proteins facilitating membrane water transport. In fact, the demonstration of aquaporin function was so groundbreaking, that in 2003 the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Peter Agre for his discovery of the aquaporins. Another property of certain aquaporins identified in recent years relates to facilitating membrane transport of gasses like CO2 or NH3. This function was also widely thought to be unnecessary, as membranes were believed to be permeable to gasses in general.