Abstract
The reproductive success of plants largely depends on the correct programming of developmental phase transitions, particularly the shift from vegetative to reproductive growth. The timing of this transition is finely regulated by the integration of an array of environmental and endogenous factors. Nitrogen is the mineral macronutrient that plants require in the largest amount, and as such its availability greatly impacts on many aspects of plant growth and development, including flowering time. We found that nitrate signaling interacts with the age-related and gibberellic acid pathways to control flowering time in Arabidopsis thaliana. We revealed that repressors of flowering time belonging to the AP2-type transcription factor family including SCHLAFMUTZE (SMZ) and SCHNARCHZAPFEN (SNZ) are important regulators of flowering time in response to nitrate. Our results support a model whereby nitrate activates SMZ and SNZ via the gibberellin pathway to repress flowering time in Arabidopsis thaliana.
Highlights
Nitrogen (N) is an essential component of many key biological molecules and a limiting factor for plant growth in natural as well as in agricultural systems (Frink et al, 1999)
To evaluate the effect of nitrate concentration on flowering time in Arabidopsis, we seeded plants on vermiculite and Plants have developed internal and environmentally dependent pathways to finely tune the timing of the reproductive phase transition according to endogenous and exogenous cues (Vidal et al, 2014)
We found that the repressive effect of nitrate over bolting and flowering was suppressed in the miR172 overexpressor and in the quintuple DELLA mutant (Fig. 2A)
Summary
Nitrogen (N) is an essential component of many key biological molecules and a limiting factor for plant growth in natural as well as in agricultural systems (Frink et al, 1999). Arabidopsis plants grown under low-nitrate conditions flower earlier than plants grown under high nitrate (Castro Marín et al, 2011; Yuan et al, 2016) This effect was first attributed to a novel signaling pathway acting directly over floral integrators; the identity of the components involved in this pathway is still an open question (Castro Marín et al, 2011; Kant et al, 2011; Liu et al, 2013). Our results support a model whereby NRT1.1mediated nitrate signaling interacts with the GA pathway and key elements of the ageing pathway in order to control bolting and flowering time in Arabidopsis
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