Nitrogen signaling and use efficiency in plants: what's new?
Crop productivity is heavily dependent on the application of nitrogen (N) fertilizers. Increasing N fertilization levels, however, are subject to diminishing returns, quite apart from their deleterious impact on the environment. Improving N use efficiency (NUE) is therefore crucial for development of sustainable agriculture. Plant NUE is a complex trait determined by quantitative trait loci and influenced by environmental changes. The natural supply of soil N varies and is frequently limiting for plant growth and crop yield: unraveling the molecular basis of how plants sense and respond to changes in N availability should enable the development of new strategies to increase NUE. This review discusses the latest advances in our understanding of N signaling and crosstalk with other signaling pathways.
The State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, PR China.
Qian
Q
Liu
The State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, PR China.
Xiangbin
X
Chen
The State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, PR China.
Kun
K
Wu
The State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, PR China. Electronic address: xdfu@genetics.ac.cn.
Xiangdong
X
Fu
D009584:Nitrogen / Q000378:metabolism*; D018521:Plant Physiological Phenomena; D015398:Signal Transduction
D009584:Nitrogen