Disease relevance of SKOR

• SKOR expression is strongly inhibited by the stress phytohormone abscisic acid, supporting the hypothesis that control of K+ translocation toward the shoots is part of the plant response to water stress [1].

High impact information on SKOR

• Expression in Xenopus oocytes identified SKOR as the first member of the Shaker family in plants to be endowed with outwardly rectifying properties [1].
• SKOR expression is localized in root stelar tissues [1].
• Activation by K+ did not affect the kinetics of voltage dependence in SKOR, indicating that a voltage-independent gating mechanism underlies the K+ sensing process [2].
• The physiological interactions between these two ions was investigated by examining aspects of K(+) nutrition in the Arabidopsis salt overly sensitive (sos) mutants, and salt sensitivity in the K(+) transport mutants akt1 (Arabidopsis K(+) transporter) and skor (shaker-like K(+) outward-rectifying channel) [3].
• SKOR and GORK are outward-rectifying plant potassium channels from Arabidopsis thaliana [4].

Biological context of SKOR

• Based on their electrophysiology and tissue expression patterns, AtSKOR encodes a depolarisation-activated outward-rectifying (Ca(2+)-permeable) K(+) channel (KORC) in stelar cells and AtGORK is likely to encode a KORC in the plasma membrane of other Arabidopsis root cells [5].

Other interactions of SKOR

• Three members of the so-called Shaker K+ channel gene family (nine genes identified in Arabidopsis) play a role in these transports: AKT1, SKOR and AKT2 [6].
• We demonstrate that SKOR and GORK physically interact and assemble into heteromeric K(out) channels [4].
• Deletion mutants and chimeric proteins generated from SKOR and the K(in) channel alpha-subunit KAT1 revealed that the cytoplasmic C-terminus of SKOR determines channel assembly [4].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of SKOR

• We investigated the mechanism of K+-dependent gating of the K+ channel SKOR of Arabidopsis by site-directed mutagenesis [7].

References