Functional Analyses of the Two Distinctive Types of Two-Pore Channels (TPCs) and the Slow Vacuolar Channel in Marchantia polymorpha

The two-pore channel (TPC) family is widely conserved in eukaryotes. Many vascular plants, including Arabidopsis and rice, possess a single TPC gene which functions as a slow vacuolar (SV) channel—voltage-dependent cation-permeable channel located in the vacuolar membrane (tonoplast). On the other hand, a liverwort Marchantia polymorpha genome encodes three TPC homologs: MpTPC1 is similar to TPCs in vascular plants (type 1 TPC), while MpTPC2 and MpTPC3 are classified into a distinctive group (type 2 TPC). Phylogenetic analysis suggested that the type 2 TPC emerged before the land colonization in plant evolution and was lost in vascular plants and hornworts. All of the three MpTPCs were shown to be localized at the tonoplast. We generated knockout mutants of tpc1, tpc2, tpc3, and tpc2 tpc3 double mutant by CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing and performed patch-clamp analyses of isolated vacuoles. The SV channel activity was abolished in the Mptpc1 loss-of-function mutant (Mptpc1-1KO), while Mptpc2-1KO, Mptpc3-1KO, and Mptpc2-2/tpc3-2KO double mutant exhibited similar activity to the wild type, indicating that MpTPC1 (type 1) is solely responsible for the SV channel activity. Activators of mammalian TPC channels, PI(3,5)P2, and, NAADP, did not affect the ion channel activity of any MpTPCs. These results indicate that the type 1 TPCs, which are well conserved in all land plant species, encode the SV channel, while the type 2 TPCs likely encode other tonoplast cation channel(s) distinct from the SV channel and animal TPC channels.