INVESTIGADORES
GRAS Diana Ester
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Functional association between nitrogen fixing bacteria and Arabidopsis thaliana
Autor/es:
KRAISER T; GRAS DE; GONZÁLEZ B; GUTIÉRREZ RA
Lugar:
Munich
Reunión:
Congreso; 10th European Nitrogen Fixation Congress; 2012
Institución organizadora:
University of Munich
Resumen:
Plants have functional association with bacteria. Bacteria can enhance plant growth by regulating phytohormones levels and by increasing nutrient bioavailability. Arabidopsis thaliana is one of the favorite model systems in plant biology and has been utilized extensively to understand plant:pathogen interactions. However, there are very few reports documenting Arabidopsis interactions with beneficial bacteria. Because of the importance of nitrogen as a nutrient for plant growth, we investigated the effect of plant growth promoting bacteria on plant nitrogen nutrition. Our goal was to evaluate a functional association between A. thaliana and nitrogen fixing bacteria (NFB) to develop a model system in which to study such type of plant:bacteria interactions. We discovered a positive effect of NFB on plant growth under nitrogen-limiting conditions. We showed the growth promoting effect to be at least partly dependent on nitrogen fixation by genetically inactivating the nitrogenase complex in the bacterium. Analysis of plant gene expression under different nitrogen regimes in the presence or absence of NFB identified candidate plant genes. Arabidopsis mutant lines verified the importance of these genes for NFB mediated plant growth promotion. Our results indicate that Arabidopsis associates with NFB, some of which enhance nitrogen nutrition and plant growth. In additions, we identified plant genes that may play a role in the molecular mechanism required for functional plant:bacteria interactions. We propose Arabidopsis and selected NFB as an excellent model system to understand the importance of nitrogen-fixation for growth on non-leguminous plant species.