A computational approach to identify the role of potassium transporter in barley

Abstract Potassium ion ( K + ) is an essential macronutrient for plant growth and survival. K + involves several biochemical and physiological pathways and hence its regulation is essential for normal metabolism and cellular functions. K + homeostasis is maintained by many proteins in a coordinated manner. In barley at least fifteen proteins are directly involved in potassium transport. Interaction among these proteins forms a network along with forty-nine other proteins. We retrieved the potassium transporter interaction network from STRING and the network was analyzed for centrality measures using Cytoscape. Based on the centrality measures such as betweenness, bridging, closeness, degree, eccentricity, eigenvector, radiality and stress, the proteins MLOC_6793.2, MLOC_14891.1, MLOC_16944.1, MLOC_57408.2, and MLOC_63991.1 are found to be most important for the network. These five proteins interact among themselves and form a subgraph. MLOC_63991.1 is the most essential protein as it links other 4 proteins in the network. MLOC_63991.1 is a monomer with 769 amino acid sequences. This protein is predicted and described as potassium transporter.