Current aspects and perspectives of Aquaporinology: 30 years after the discovery in Cluj-Napoca by Benga group of the first water channel protein (later called aquaporin1)

Abstract

In 1985, together with my coworkers, I discovered in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, the first water channel protein (WCP) in the human red blood cell (hRBC) membrane, after a decade of systematic studies of water diffusion in  the hRBC. The discovery was reported in 1986 in two landmark publications (Benga et al., 1986a,b) and reviewed in subsequent years (Benga, 1988; 1989).

            In 1988 the same protein was serendipitously isolated from hRBC by Peter Agre and coworkers working in Baltimore, USA, and called CHIP28 (CHannel forming Integral membrane Protein of 28 kDa) (Denker et al., 1988). This group recognized the role of the protein as a water channel only in 1992 (Preston et al., 1992). In the same year other WCPs were discovered and cloned and the name “aquaporins” was proposed for this class of membrane proteins. The WCP first discovered by my group in 1985 and re-discovered by Agre group in 1992 was called aquaporin 1 (AQP1). Soon it became obvious that a large family of WCPs exists, as hundreds of such proteins have been discovered in organisms from all kingdoms of life, including unicellular organisms (archaea, bacteria, yeasts, and protozoa) and multicellular ones (plants, animals, and humans). WCPs belong to a superfamily of membrane proteins called MIPs (intrinsic membrane proteins) (Benga, 2012)."