Mining cation (CAX) transporter diversity for nutrition-enhanced crops and phytoremediation.

Plant CAX (cation/proton exchangers) have been demonstrated to be versatile tools for nutritional enhancement of crops and phytoremediation. However, the extent of sequence diversity of plant CAXs has not been fully understood. Therefore, we isolated new CAXs from several local plants that occur in the Gujarat State in India to explore the diversity. We have identified a novel element in two Asteraceae species that is absent from any CAX in the public databases. The sequence diversity and the new element discovered in this investigation will be further studied biochemically for future applications in genetically modified plants.