Abstract
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An ammonium transporter LbAMT3-1 overexpression increases the arbuscular abundance of mycorrhizal that opens the possibility of using LbAMT3-1 in breeding programs to improve symbiotic nutrient uptake in Lycium barbarum.
Abstract
Nitrogen (N) is one of the most essential nutrients required by plants and limits net primary production much of the time in most terrestrial ecosystems. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi can enhance plant nutrient uptake and improve plant productivity in nutrient limit ecosystems. Here, we identified an ammonia transporter, LbAMT3-1, specifically induced by AM fungi in Lycium barbarum. To understand the expression characteristics and biological functions, LbAMT3-1 was cloned, characterized, and overexpressed in Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco). A BLAST search identified the coding sequence for LbAMT3-1 with an open-reading frame of 1473 bp. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis indicated that, besides mycorrhizal roots, LbAMT3-1 were barely detectable in other tissues, including stems and leaves. Promoter-GUS assay showed that GUS staining was detected in mycorrhizal roots, and GUS activity driven by the LbAMT3-1 promoter was exclusively confined to root cells containing arbuscules. LbAMT3-1 functionally complemented the yeast mutant efficiently, and yeast expressing LbAMT3-1 showed well growth on the agar medium with 0.02, 0.2, and 2 mM NH4+ supply. Moreover, overexpression of LbAMT3-1 in N. tabacum resulted a significant increase in arbuscular abundance and enhanced the nutrient acquisition capacity of mycorrhizal plants. Based on the results of our study, we propose that overexpression of LbAMT3-1 can promote P and N uptake of host plants through the mycorrhizal pathway, and increase the colonization intensity and arbuscular abundance, which opens the possibility of using LbAMT3-1 in breeding programs.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the referees and editors for their valuable advice and gratefully acknowledge to Prof. Chunxia Zhang from College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University for providing the yeast mutants.
Funding
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31700530, http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/) and the State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-bioresources (SKLCUSA-b202007).
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HZ and MT provided ideas, conceived and designed research. KC conducted experiments and wrote the manuscript. MW and XJ analyzed data. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Communicated by Neal Stewart.
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Cheng, K., Wei, M., Jin, X. et al. LbAMT3-1, an ammonium transporter induced by arbuscular mycorrhizal in Lycium barbarum, confers tobacco with higher mycorrhizal levels and nutrient uptake. Plant Cell Rep 41, 1477–1480 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-022-02847-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-022-02847-0