Alternate energy-dependent pathways for the vacuolar uptake of glucose and glutathione conjugates

Through the development and application of a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based procedure for measuring the transport of complex organic molecules by vacuolar membrane vesicles in vitro, it is shown that the mechanism of uptake of sulfonylurea herbicides is determined by the ligand, glucose, or glutathione, to which the herbicide is conjugated. ATP-dependent accumulation of glucosylated chlorsulfuron by vacuolar membrane vesicles purified from red beet (Beta vulgaris) storage root approximates Michaelis-Menten kinetics and is strongly inhibited by agents that collapse or prevent the formation of a transmembrane H+ gradient, but is completely insensitive to the phosphoryl transition state analog, vanadate. In contrast, ATP-dependent accumulation of the glutathione conjugate of a chlorsulfuron analog, chlorimuronethyl, is incompletely inhibited by agents that dissipate the transmembrane H+ gradient but completely abolished by vanadate. In both cases, however, conjugation is essential for net uptake because neither of the unconjugated parent compounds are accumulated under energized or nonenergized conditions. That the attachment of glucose to two naturally occurring phenylpropanoids, p-hydroxycinnamic acid and p-hydroxybenzoic acid via aromatic hydroxyl groups, targets these compounds to the functional equivalent of the transporter responsible for chlorsulfuron-glucoside transport, confirms the general applicability of the H+ gradient dependence of glucoside uptake. It is concluded that H+ gradient-dependent, vanadate-insensitive glucoside uptake is mediated by an H+ antiporter, whereas vanadate-sensitive glutathione conjugate uptake is mediated by an ATP-binding cassette transporter. In so doing, it is established that liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry affords a versatile high-sensitivity, high-fidelity technique for studies of the transport of complex organic molecules whose synthesis as radiolabeled derivatives is laborious and/or prohibitively expensive.