Roles, Regulation, and Agricultural Application of Plant Phosphate Transporters.

Duoliya Wang,Yinxin Li,Sulian Lv,Ping Jiang

doi:10.3389/fpls.2017.00817

Abstract

Phosphorus (P) is an essential mineral nutrient for plant growth and development. Low availability of inorganic phosphate (orthophosphate; Pi) in soil seriously restricts the crop production, while excessive fertilization has caused environmental pollution. Pi acquisition and homeostasis depend on transport processes controlled Pi transporters, which are grouped into five families so far: PHT1, PHT2, PHT3, PHT4, and PHT5. This review summarizes the current understanding on plant PHT families, including phylogenetic analysis, function, and regulation. The potential application of Pi transporters and the related regulatory factors for developing genetically modified crops with high phosphorus use efficiency (PUE) are also discussed in this review. At last, we provide some potential strategies for developing high PUE crops under salt or drought stress conditions, which can be valuable for improving crop yields challenged by global scarcity of water resources and increasing soil salinization.

Highlights

Phosphorus (P), one of the major plant macronutrients, is a structural component of nucleic acids and phospholipids and plays essential roles in energy transfer, signal transduction, and enzyme activation
Arabidopsis and E. salsugineum belong to the minority of plants that cannot associate with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and our analysis showed that no Arabidopsis PHT1 proteins included in group II, which indicated a certain reliability of predicting unknown gene functions through phylogenetic analysis
Further comparative expression patterns analysis of Pi transporters between E. salsugineum and Arabidopsis under salt stress and low-Pi conditions will help to identify members that are involved in Pi uptake and distribution under salinity conditions, which can be valuable for improving crop yields challenged by increasing soil salinization and shrinking farmland

Summary

Introduction

Phosphorus (P), one of the major plant macronutrients, is a structural component of nucleic acids and phospholipids and plays essential roles in energy transfer, signal transduction, and enzyme activation. Under Pi deficient condition, miR827 and miR399 mediate post-transcriptional cleavages on the transcripts of NLA and PHO2, thereby relieving the PHT1 transporter degradation and activating Pi uptake as well as root-to-shoot translocation (Figure 2).

Results

Conclusion