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Plant and Cell Physiology Advance Access published online on May 28, 2008
Plant and Cell Physiology, doi:10.1093/pcp/pcn081
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Enzymatic and metabolic diagnostic of nitrogen deficiency in Arabidopsis thaliana Wassileskija accession

Thomas Lemaître£, Laure Gaufichon£, Stéphanie Boutet-Mercey, Aurélie Christ and Céline Masclaux-Daubresse*

Unité de Nutrition Azotée des Plantes, UNAP, UR511, INRA, Route de Saint Cyr, F-78000 Versailles

*corresponding author : Dr. Céline Masclaux-Daubresse, phone +33 (0)1 30 83 30 88, fax +33 (0)1 30 83 30 96, mail masclaux{at}versailles.inra.fr


  Abstract

Adaptation to steady-state low-nutrient availability was investigated by comparing the Wassileskija (WS) accession of Arabidopsis thaliana grown on 2 mM nitrate or 10 mM nitrate. Low nitrogen conditions led to a limited rosette biomass and seed yield. The latter was mainly due to reduced seed number while seed weight was less affected. However, harvest index was lower upon high nitrate compared to limited nitrate condition. Under nitrogen limiting conditions, nitrate reductase activity was decreased while glutamine synthetase activity was increased due to a higher accumulation of the cytosolic enzyme. The level of nitrogen remobilisation to the seeds was higher under low nitrogen and the vegetative parts of the plants remaining after seed production stored very low residual nitrogen. Through promoting nitrogen remobilisation and recycling pathways, nitrogen limitation modified plant and seed compositions. Rosette leaves contained more sugars and less free amino acids when grown under nitrogen limiting conditions. Compared to high nitrogen, their levels of proline, asparagine and glutamine were decreased. The seed amino acid composition reflected that of the rosette leaves, thus suggesting that phloem loading for seed filling was poorly selective. The major finding of this report was that together with decreasing biomass and yield, nitrogen limitation triggers large modifications in vegetative products and seed quality.

Keywords: Nitrogen limitation - nitrogen remobilisation - glutamine synthetase - nitrate reductase - amino acid - seed composition - asparagine - glutamine

£ These two authors contributed equally to the paper

(Received March 28, 2008; Accepted May 24, 2008)
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