New understanding of plant nutrient response could improve fertilizer management strategies
Chlorosis research could have implications for resilience in food crops-- especially crucial in a changing climate

Date:
December 10, 2021
Source:
Carnegie Institution for Science
Summary:
Green is a color that is almost universally associated with
plants -- for good reason. The green pigment chlorophyll is
essential to plants' ability to generate food; but what happens
if they don't have enough of it? New work reveals the complex,
interdependent nutrient responses underpinning a potentially deadly,
low-chlorophyll state called chlorosis that's associated with an
anemic, yellow appearance. It could usher in more environmentally
friendly agricultural practices -- using less fertilizer and fewer
water resources.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Green is a color that is almost universally associated with plants --
for good reason. The green pigment chlorophyll is essential to plants'
ability to generate food; but what happens if they don't have enough
of it?

==========================================================================
New work from Carnegie, Michigan State University, and the National
Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment in France
reveals the complex, interdependent nutrient responses underpinning
a potentially deadly, low- chlorophyll state called chlorosis that's
associated with an anemic, yellow appearance. Their findings, published
by Nature Communications, could usher in more environmentally friendly agricultural practices -- using less fertilizer and fewer water resources.

Photosynthesis is the complex biochemical process by which plant cells
convert the Sun's energy into chemical energy, which then is used to
fix carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into sugar molecules. It occurs
inside highly specialized plant cell organelles called chloroplasts.

Nutrients accumulate in chloroplasts and are essential to their optimal functioning. The research team -- led by MSU's Hatem Rouached and
including Carnegie's Sue Rhee, Hye-In Nam, Yanniv Dorone, Sophie Clowez,
and Kangmei Zhao -- showed that a balance of both iron and phosphorus
are necessary to prevent chlorosis. The project was initiated when
Rouached was a visiting scholar at Carnegie from France, which was made possible in part by Brigitte Berthelemot'sgenerous support to promote Franco-American research collaboration.

"For a long time, experts have thought that low iron is the sole cause of chlorosis and farmers have often applied iron to combat leaf yellowing,"
Rhee explained. "But recent work has shown that other nutrients play
a role in bringing about this anemic reaction." To better understand
what makes leaves chlorotic, the investigators decided to look at the
response to multiple nutrients in concert, rather than one by one.

They found that plants showing chlorosis induced by iron deficiency
would yellow and photosynthetic activity would be affected, as
expected. However, when the nutrient phosphorus was also removed, the
plant's leaves started accumulating chlorophyll and turned green again.

The explanation for this unexpected response lies in the signaling between
the chloroplast, where photosynthesis occurs, and the cell's nucleus,
where its genetic code is stored.

Interdisciplinary analyses indicated that the nucleus' ability to regulate
gene expression in response to low iron depends on the availability
of phosphorus.

This kind of complex layering of nutrient responses shows that there
is much still to learn about these communication channels between these
two crucial plant organelles.

The team's findings could have implications for resilience in food crops -
- especially crucial in a changing climate.

"We need to rethink fertilizer management, for example," Rouached
concluded.

"If we take actions that don't consider how the nutrients interact
with each other, we potentially create conditions that set plants up
to fail. It's critical that we correct this thinking moving forward for
the benefit of food production worldwide." This work was funded in part
by the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique -- Montpellier --
France, AgreeenSkills Plus, Michigan State University, the Carnegie
Institution for Science, Brigitte Berthelemot, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science Office
of Biological and Environmental Research, Genomic Science Program.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Carnegie_Institution_for_Science. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Hye-In Nam, Zaigham Shahzad, Yanniv Dorone, Sophie Clowez,
Kangmei Zhao,
Nadia Bouain, Katerina S. Lay-Pruitt, Huikyong Cho, Seung Y. Rhee,
Hatem Rouached. Interdependent iron and phosphorus availability
controls photosynthesis through retrograde signaling. Nature
Communications, 2021; 12 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27548-2 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211210121846.htm

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