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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Ithaca, New York » Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health » Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #349554
Title: Transcriptional regulation of nitrogen and nitrogen-related metabolism in Arabidopsis

Author
item GAUDINIER, ALLISON - University Of California, Davis
item RODRIGUES-MEDINA, JOEL - University Of California, Davis
item ZHANG, LIFANG - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
item OLSON, ANDREW - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
item LISERON-MONFILS, CHRISTOPHE - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
item Ware, Doreen

Submitted to: Nature
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/22/2018
Publication Date: 10/24/2018
Citation: Gaudinier, A., Rodrigues-Medina, J., Zhang, L., Olson, A., Liseron-Monfils, C., Ware, D. 2018. Transcriptional regulation of nitrogen and nitrogen-related metabolism in Arabidopsis. Nature. 563:259-264. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0656-3.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0656-3

Interpretive Summary: Nitrogen (N) is an essential macronutrient for plant growth and basic metabolic processes. The plant perceives N deficiency as a stress, resulting in altered plant development and a reduction in growth and yield. Application of N containing fertilizer resulted in increases in plant yield, playing a significant factor in the green revolution. Ecologically, however, excessive application of fertilizer has disastrous effects such as eutrophication. This work is focused on decoding the gene regulatory mechanisms involved in N metabolism using yeast one-hybrid technology to identify TF binding, transcriptome analysis of samples under N-sufficient, –deficient conditions, and ranking analysis to find the core set of TFs and N metabolic genes in the N metabolic process. Newly identified TFs in addition to the “core” set of N metabolic enzymes will assist in breeding efforts to generate plants with better N use efficiency.

Technical Abstract: Nitrogen is essential for plant growth. Insufficient nitrogen leads to decreased agricultural yield while nitrogen application from fertilizers results in increased plant productivity but can have a negative impact on the environment. Changes in nitrogen availability are perceived by dual function nitrate transporters in the root resulting in a signaling cascade and subsequent changes in gene expression. Despite the importance of transcriptional regulation in this adaptive response, a minimal number of nitrogen metabolic transcriptional regulators have been identified. Here we present a transcriptional regulatory network and twenty-three novel transcription factors that regulate root and shoot system architecture upon changes in nitrogen availability. Genetic perturbation of a subset of these transcription factors revealed coordinate transcriptional regulation of nitrogen metabolic enzymes. Feedback is a common form of metabolic regulation. Transcriptional regulators in the network are transcriptionally modified by feedback via genetic perturbation of nitrogen metabolism.