Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Feb 15:12:630587.
doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.630587. eCollection 2021.

Nitrogen and Stem Development: A Puzzle Still to Be Solved

Lucas Anjos Souza  1 , Rafael Tavares  2
Affiliations
Review

Nitrogen and Stem Development: A Puzzle Still to Be Solved

Lucas Anjos Souza et al. Front Plant Sci. .

Abstract

High crop yields are generally associated with high nitrogen (N) fertilizer rates. A growing tendency that is urgently demanding the adoption of precision technologies that manage N more efficiently, combined with the advances of crop genetics to meet the needs of sustainable farm systems. Among the plant traits, stem architecture has been of paramount importance to enhance harvest index in the cereal crops. Nonetheless, the reduced stature also brought undesirable effect, such as poor N-uptake, which has led to the overuse of N fertilizer. Therefore, a better understanding of how N signals modulate the initial and late stages of stem development might uncover novel semi-dwarf alleles without pleiotropic effects. Our attempt here is to review the most recent advances on this topic.

Keywords: high crop yield; internode elongation; nitrogen fertilizer; nitrogen use efficiency; stem development.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
How nitrogen (N) may modulate stem development. (A) Schematic illustration of Arabidopsis inflorescence stem showing the longitudinal section of the shoot apical meristem (SAM) and the meristematic zones. In detail, a representation of the oriented cell division in the rib zone (RZ). CZ, central zone; RM/OC, rib meristem/organizing centre; PZ, peripheral zone; B, organ boundary. (B) The dual nitrogen sensing within the shoot apex through a systemic root-to-shoot transport of the active cytokinin (CK) trans-zeatin (tZ), and the local sensing of nitrate through the nitrate reductase enzymes. In the dashed square, the two regulatory factors of the primary nitrate responses (TGA1/4) are highlighted, evidencing their involvement in the activation of the organ boundary genes. Blue arrows show the direction of root-to-shoot transportation. (C) Schematic illustration of wheat showing the growth stage 32 (GS32) based on Zadoks et al. (1974). In wheat, most N is taken up during the stem elongation phase (GS30–GS37) until the flowering stage. On the right, the longitudinal section of the nodes and internodes, and the floret initiation at this stage. (D) A simplified scheme of the central role of N in the regulation of the four different aspects of stem development.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Alvarez J. M., Riveras E., Vidal E. A., Gras D. E., Contreras-López O., Tamayo K. P., et al. . (2014). Systems approach identifies TGA1 and TGA4 transcription factors as important regulatory components of the nitrate response of Arabidopsis thaliana roots. Plant J. 80, 1–13. 10.1111/tpj.12618, PMID: - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bacete L., Hamann T. (2020). The role of mechanoperception in plant cell wall integrity maintenance. Plan. Theory 9:574. 10.3390/plants9050574, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bai M. Y., Shang J. X., Oh E., Fan M., Bai Y., Zentella R., et al. . (2012). Brassinosteroid, gibberellin and phytochrome impinge on a common transcription module in Arabidopsis. Nat. Cell Biol. 14, 810–817. 10.1038/ncb2546, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Banasiak A., Biedroń M., Dolzblasz A., Berezowski M. A. (2019). Ontogenetic changes in auxin biosynthesis and distribution determine the organogenic activity of the shoot apical meristem in pin1 mutants. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 20:180. 10.3390/ijms20010180, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Barros J., Serk H., Granlund I., Pesquet E. (2015). The cell biology of lignification in higher plants. Ann. Bot. 115, 1053–1074. 10.1093/aob/mcv046, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources