In Arabidopsis, the roles of the NIPs in the arsenite distribution in plants remain poorly understood.Here, we report that Arabidopsis NIP3;1 and NIP 1;1 play different major roles in the shoot and root distributions of arsenite.The nip3;1 loss-of-function mutants displayed obvious improvements in high arsenite tolerance for aboveground growth, which was different from the tolerance to arsenite of the primary root growth of nip1;l.The shoots of nip3;1 accumulated less As than did those of the wild type under high arsenite conditions, indicating that NIP3;1 is involved in arsenite uptake and root-to-shoot translocation.