Yaodong Yang is the first author of a 2006 study directly characterizing the auxin influx carrier AUX1. The team expressed this plant membrane transport protein in Xenopus oocytes and measured entry of radioactively labeled indole-3-acetic acid. Uptake was saturable and depended on pH, providing functional evidence about transport rather than only the protein's location.[ref]
High-affinity auxin transport by the AUX1 influx carrier protein by Yaodong Yang and others. Abstract: heterologous expression and radiolabeled IAA uptake; Current Biology 16, 1123–1127, 2006
The mutant comparison connected molecular and organismal observations. Changes in AUX1 that disrupted auxin responses in plants also reduced uptake in the experimental oocytes. Testing the same altered protein in a different cellular setting helped distinguish its transport activity from the many downstream effects of auxin on plant development. Saturation also indicates a limited transport capacity under the assay conditions, rather than an uptake rate that increases without bound.[ref]
High-affinity auxin transport by the AUX1 influx carrier protein by Yaodong Yang and others. Abstract: mutant uptake, concentration dependence and physiological relevance
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