Multiple nutrient transporters enable cells to mitigate a rate-affinity tradeoff.

ABSTRACT: Eukaryotic genomes often encode multiple transporters for the same nutrient. For example, budding yeast has 17 hexose transporters (HXTs), all of which potentially transport glucose. Using mathematical modelling, we show that transporters that use either facilitated diffusion or symport can have a rate-affinity tradeoff, where an increase in the maximal rate of transport decreases the transporter's apparent affinity. These changes affect the import flux non-monotonically, and for a given concentration of extracellular nutrient there is one transporter, characterised by its affinity, that has a higher import flux than any other. Through encoding multiple transporters, cells can therefore mitigate the tradeoff by expressing those transporters with higher affinities in lower concentrations of

SUBMITTER: Montano-Gutierrez LF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9071158 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature