Recent advances for plant secondary metabolite transporters / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Plants produce a series of secondary metabolites in cells. These secondary metabolites will be transported to specific organelles for storage or secreted extracellularly. Transporters are a class of membrane proteins that mediate transmembrane transport of chemicals and intracellular signal exchange, and also play an important role in transmembrane transport of plant secondary metabolites. Identification of the function of the secondary metabolite transporters of medicinal plants will help to elucidate the biosynthetic pathways of secondary metabolites in medicinal plants and the molecular mechanism of the transport process of bioactive compounds. In this review, the structure and classification of plant transporters are described in detail. The research progress of plant secondary metabolic transporters and the methods for functional verification of transporter, which have been summarized in this article, will provide a basis for elucidating the biosynthetic pathways and utilization of secondary metabolites in medicinal plants.