Cell Biology of Metals and Nutrients

Plants are composed of 17 essential and at least 5 beneficial elements, and these must be taken up as metal or nutrient ions to allow for growth and cell division. Much effort has been devoted to studying the physiology and biochemistry of metals and nutrients in plants. The aspect of cell biology, however, is an emerging new field and much needs to be learned about sensing, long-distance communication within plants, and cellular signal transduction chains in response to environmental stress. Cellular malfunction and consequently disease result when any of the key steps in metal and nutrient homeostasis are disrupted.

Working together, leading experts in their respective fields provide a new concept that reaches beyond plant nutrition and plasmalemma transport into cellular physiology. Each chapter contains basic information on uptake, physiological function, deficiency and toxicity syndromes, long-distance and intracellular transport. The discussion is devoted to metals and nutrients where recent progress has been made and highlights the aspects of homeostasis and sensing, signaling and regulation, drawing parallels to other organisms including humans. Finally, the book identifies gaps in our current knowledge and lays out future research directions.

Rüdiger Hell studied Biology at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, and completed his PhD at the University of Cologne, Germany in 1989. From 1990 to 1992 he worked at the University of California in Berkeley as a postdoctoral researcher. After returning to Germany he completed his postdoctoral thesis at the University of Bochum in 1998 and held a position at the Leibniz Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben. During that time he developed his ongoing interest in molecular mechanisms of plant nutrition, especially sulfur metabolism and cellular redox control. In 2003 he was appointed chair at the Heidelberg Institute for Plant Sciences. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Biosciences at Heidelberg University from 2005-2007, and is currently the managing director of the university’s Plant Sciences Institute.

Ralf R. Mendel studied biochemistry at the Humboldt University in Berlin, completed his PhD at the Martin-Luther-University Halle in 1979 and his postdoctoral thesis in 1985. During that time he held a position at the Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben. In 1992 he was appointed Full Professor of Botany at the (now) Institute of Plant Biology of the Braunschweig University of Technology, Germany. He has been the director of the Institute since 1993 and also served as Dean of Biosciences at Braunschweig from 1997 to 1999. His research focuses on the cell biology and biochemistry of molybdenum in plants and humans.