Phosphorus is one of the three essential nutrients for plant growth and development. Wang Ertao’s research team of the center for excellence and innovation in molecular plant science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences published a cover paper online on the internationally renowned academic journal Cell at 23 p.m. on the 12th, making important progress in the research on “self-regulation” of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis.
Phr (phosphate startup response) is a core transcription factor regulating phosphorus uptake by plant roots. It is found that by increasing the expression of phr gene, it is expected to increase the direct absorption of phosphorus nutrition by rice and indirectly through arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis, reduce the application of agricultural phosphorus fertilizer, and provide a new scheme for the sustainable development of agricultural production.
According to the researchers, plants mainly obtain nutrition through two ways: the first is that plant roots absorb nutrition directly from the soil, which is called direct nutrient absorption. The second is that plants obtain nutrients from the external environment through symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi, which is called indirect nutrient absorption pathway.
Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis is the most common symbiosis in nature. It is an important way for plants to obtain nutrition efficiently from the environment. The phosphorus provided by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to host plants accounts for more than 70% of the total phosphorus obtained by host plants. Over the past 50 years, it has been found that plants regulate their symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi according to their phosphorus nutritional status. Researchers call it “self-regulation” of mycorrhizal symbiosis, but its regulation mechanism is unknown.
Wang Ertao’s research team mapped the transcriptional regulation network of rice arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis for the first time. It was found that both plant direct phosphorus nutrient absorption pathway (root pathway) and symbiotic phosphorus nutrient absorption pathway (symbiotic pathway) were uniformly regulated by plant phosphorus signal network, which answered the important scientific problem of “self-regulation” in the field of mycorrhizal symbiosis.
Source: China News Network
Post time: Oct-15-2021