The plasma membrane H+-ATPase from fungi and plants is a proton pump which
plays a key role in the physiology of these organisms controlling essential
functions such as nutrient uptake and intracellular pH regulation. In fung
al and plant cells the activity of the proton pump is regulated by a large
number of environmental factors at both transcriptional and posttranslation
al levels. During the last years the powerful tools of molecular biology ha
ve been successfully used in fungi and plants allowing the cloning of a wid
e diversity of H+-ATPase genes and rapid progress on the molecular basis of
reaction mechanism and regulation of the proton pump. This review focuses
on recent results on regulation of plasma membrane H+-ATPase obtained by mo
lecular approaches. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.