A Comprehensive Biophysical Model of Ion and Water Transport in Plant Roots. III. Quantifying the Energy Costs of Ion Transport in Salt-Stressed Roots of Arabidopsis

Salt stress defence mechanisms in plant roots, such as active Na+ efflux and storage, require energy in the form of ATP. Understanding the energy required for these transport mechanisms is an important step toward achieving an understanding of salt tolerance. However, accurate measurements of the fluxes required to estimate these energy costs are difficult to achieve by experimental means. As a result, the magnitude of the energy costs of ion transport in salt-stressed roots relative to energy available is unclear, as are the relative contributions of different defence mechanisms to the total cost. We used mathematical modelling to address three key questions about the energy costs of ion transport in salt-stressed Arabidopsis roots: are these energy requirements feasible; which transport steps are the main contributors to the total energy costs; and which transport processes could be altered to minimise the total energy costs? Using our biophysical model of ion and water transport we calculated the energy expended in the trans-plasma membrane and trans-tonoplast transport of Na+, K+, Cl- and H+ in different regions of a salt-stressed model Arabidopsis root. Our calculated energy costs exceeded experimental estimates of the energy supplied by root respiration for high external NaCl concentrations. We found that Na+ exclusion from, and Cl- uptake into, the outer root were the major contributors to the total energy expended. Reducing the leakage of Na+ and the active uptake of Cl- across outer root plasma membranes would lower energy costs while enhancing exclusion of these ions. The high energy cost of ion transport in roots demonstrates that the energetic consequences of altering ion transport processes should be considered when attempting to improve salt tolerance.