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Physiological, molecular, and environmental insights into plant nitrogen uptake, and metabolism under abiotic stresses
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Physiological, molecular, and environmental insights into plant nitrogen uptake, and metabolism under abiotic stresses

Kashif Akhtar, Noor Ul Ain, P V Vara Prasad, Misbah Naz, Mehtab Muhammad Aslam, Ivica Djalovic, Muhammad Riaz, Shakeel Ahmad, Rajeev K Varshney, Bing He, …
The plant genome, Vol.17(2), e20461
2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/tpg2.20461
PMID: 38797919
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Published (Version of Record)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0,  Open Access

Abstract

Abstract Nitrogen (N) as an inorganic macronutrient is inevitable for plant growth, development, and biomass production. Many external factors and stresses, such as acidity, alkalinity, salinity, temperature, oxygen, and rainfall, affect N uptake and metabolism in plants. The uptake of ammonium (NH4+) and nitrate (NO3−) in plants mainly depends on soil properties. Under the sufficient availability of NO3− (>1 mM), low-affinity transport system is activated by gene network NRT1, and under low NO3− availability (<1 mM), high-affinity transport system starts functioning encoded by NRT2 family of genes. Further, under limited N supply due to edaphic and climatic factors, higher expression of the AtNRT2.4 and AtNRT2.5T genes of the NRT2 family occur and are considered as N remobilizing genes. The NH4+ ion is the final form of N assimilated by cells mediated through the key enzymes glutamine synthetase and glutamate synthase. The WRKY1 is a major transcription factor of the N regulation network in plants. However, the transcriptome and metabolite profiles show variations in N assimilation metabolites, including glycine, glutamine, and aspartate, under abiotic stresses. The overexpression of NO3− transporters (OsNRT2.3a and OsNRT1.1b) can significantly improve the biomass and yield of various crops. Altering the expression levels of genes could be a valuable tool to improve N metabolism under the challenging conditions of soil and environment, such as unfavorable temperature, drought, salinity, heavy metals, and nutrient stress. Plain Language Summary The variation in climate, such as drought and temperature, changed the physiological processes of plants in response to N fertilization and determined the quality and quantity of crop yields. However, plants have naturally been evolved to survive in very heterogeneous environments where they are strongly exposed to various kinds of biotic and abiotic stresses. This review emphasizes that understanding of the physiological and molecular pathways of N metabolism under edaphic and climatic stresses provide opportunities to identify targeting genes. The expression of these targeted genes using various biotechnological and genetic tools can help to develop crop cultivars with better abilities for N acquisition under many biotic and abiotic conditions. Using advanced genetic tools and knowledge, N uptake and N-use efficiency can be improved to increase crop yields while, subsequently, reducing the environmental impacts of N fertilization.

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Highly Cited Paper 
Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Citation topics
3 Agriculture, Environment & Ecology
3.4 Crop Science
3.4.1637 Plant Nitrogen Metabolism
Web Of Science research areas
Genetics & Heredity
Plant Sciences
ESI research areas
Plant & Animal Science
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