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Review
. 2021 Apr 8;10(4):731.
doi: 10.3390/plants10040731.

Root-Derived Proteases as a Plant Tool to Access Soil Organic Nitrogen; Current Stage of Knowledge and Controversies

Bartosz Adamczyk  1
Affiliations
Review

Root-Derived Proteases as a Plant Tool to Access Soil Organic Nitrogen; Current Stage of Knowledge and Controversies

Bartosz Adamczyk. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Anthropogenic deterioration of the global nitrogen (N) cycle emerges mainly from overuse of inorganic N fertilizers in nutrient-limited cropping systems. To counteract a further dysregulation of the N cycle, we need to improve plant nitrogen use efficiency. This aim may be reached via unravelling all plant mechanisms to access soil N, with special attention to the dominating high-molecular-mass N pool. Traditionally, we believe that inorganic N is the only plant-available N pool, however, more recent studies point to acquisition of organic N compounds, i.e., amino acids, short peptides, and proteins. The least known mechanism of plants to increase the N uptake is a direct increase of soil proteolysis via root-derived proteases. This paper provides a review of the knowledge about root-derived proteases and also controversies behind this phenomenon.

Keywords: nitrogen; proteolysis; soil.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Nitrogen (N) cycle: pools and fluxes. Potential use of organic N pool marked in dashed green line. IN—inorganic N, orgN—organic N.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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