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Responses of two rice cultivars differing in seedling-stage nitrogen use efficiency to growth under low-nitrogen conditions

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Abstract

Demand for low-input nitrogen sustainable rice is increasing to meet the need for environmentally friendly agriculture and thus development of rice with high nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is a major objective. Hence, understanding how rice responds to growth under low-nitrogen conditions is essential to devise new ways of manipulating genes to improve rice NUE. In this study, using two rice varieties with different seedling-stage NUE obtained from previous field experiments, we investigated the physiological and molecular responses of young rice to low-nitrogen conditions. Our results suggest that glutamine synthetase (GS) and NADH-dependent glutamate synthase (NADH-GOGAT) play important roles in N assimilation of seedling rice roots under low-nitrogen conditions; the regulatory mechanisms of GS and NADH-GOGAT in seedling rice roots do not occur at the transcription level, and may be posttranscriptional; OsAMT1;1 play important roles in rice N acquisition by partially regulating N uptake under low-nitrogen conditions; and OsAMT1;1 and OsNRT2;1 also play important roles in rice N acquisition by partially regulating root growth and development under low-nitrogen conditions. The challenge for future studies is to characterize the functional roles of GS, NADH-GOGAT, OsAMT1;1, and OsNRT2;1 in young rice NUE using RNAi and mutant techniques.

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Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank Professor Andre Jagendorf (Cornell University) for a critical review of the manuscript. The present investigation was financially supported by grants from the National 973 Project (No. 2007CB109303), CAS Knowledge Innovation Project (No. KSCX2-YW-N-002), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30390083).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road, No.71, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Wei Ming Shi, Wei Feng Xu, Su Mei Li, Xue Qiang Zhao & Gang Qiang Dong

  2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100081, China

    Gang Qiang Dong

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  1. Wei Ming Shi
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  2. Wei Feng Xu
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  3. Su Mei Li
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  4. Xue Qiang Zhao
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Correspondence to Wei Ming Shi.

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Responsible editor: Herbert Johannes Kronzucker.

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Shi, W.M., Xu, W.F., Li, S.M. et al. Responses of two rice cultivars differing in seedling-stage nitrogen use efficiency to growth under low-nitrogen conditions. Plant Soil 326, 291–302 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-009-0007-0

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