Nitrate regulatory mechanisms involved in the control of flowering time

GRAS DE; MANCILLA Y; GUTIÉRREZ RA

Sydeney

Conferencia; 24rd International Conference on Arabidopsis Research; 2013

Nitrogen (N) is an essential macronutrient and its availability is one of the primary factors limiting plant growth and agricultural productivity. N nutrient/metabolites can have profound impact on root development, flowering time and other developmental programs. Some of the regulatory gene networks mediating root developmental responses to N availability have been identified. However, despite the economic importance of understanding the relationship between plant N nutrition and flowering, relatively little is known about the molecular mechanisms that control flowering time in response to N supply. In this study, we used systems approaches to identify regulatory factors involved in N-control of flowering time in Arabidopsis. To analyze the possible role of these genes in the N-response, we evaluated the effect of nitrate treatments on their expression. We found that these genes accumulated quickly after nitrate treatments but not after KCl treatments (as control) indicating they are nitrate responsive genes. To understand the functional role of these N-regulatory factors for plant development, we analyzed the flowering time response to nitrate in Arabidopsis mutant lines verifying the importance of these genes for the nitrate response. Our work defined a model for N control of flowering time in Arabidopsis.