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Physiological characterisation of Arabidopsis mutants affected in the expression of the putative regulatory protein PII

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Abstract

The PII signal transducing protein is involved in carbon/nitrogen (C/N) sensing in bacteria and cyanobacteria. In higher plants the function of the PII homolog GLB1 is not known. GLB1 transcripts were found in all plant organs tested, while in Arabidopsis leaves GLB1 expression and PII protein levels were not significantly affected by either the day/night cycle or N-nutrition. Its putative regulatory role in plants has been studied by analysing Arabidopsis thaliana T-DNA insertion lines in the GLB1 gene. These PII mutants showed an 80% (PIIV1 mutant) and 100% (PIIS2 mutant) reduced AtGLB1 transcript level and no detectable PII protein. They did not display an altered growth or developmental phenotype when grown under non-limiting conditions suggesting that the PII protein does not play a crucial role in plants. However, in vitro grown PII mutants did show a higher sensitivity to nitrite (NO −2 ) compared to the wild-type plants. This observation is reminiscent of the role of PII in the regulation of NO −2 metabolism in cyanobacteria. Furthermore, when grown hydroponically, the PII mutants displayed a slight increase in carbohydrate (starch and sugars) levels in response to N starvation and a slight decrease in the levels of ammonium (NH +4 ) and amino acids (mainly Gln) in response to NH +4 resupply. Although the phenotypic changes are rather small in the mutant lines, these data support the hypothesis of a subtle involvement of the PII protein in the regulation of some steps of primary C and N metabolism.

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Abbreviations

WS:

Wassilewskija ecotype

Col:

Colombia ecotype

FW:

Fresh weight

DW:

Dry weight

EF1α:

Elongation factor one alpha

α-KG:

α-ketoglutarate

NR:

Nitrate reductase

NiR:

Nitrite reductase

GS:

Glutamine synthetase

GOGAT:

Glutamate synthase

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Acknowledgements

We thank Fabienne Granier (Unité de Biologie Cellulaire, INRA Versailles, France) and Adeline Kamara (Unité de la Nutrition Azotée des Plantes, INRA Versailles, France) for their technical help and Joël Talbotec and François Gosse (Unité de la Nutrition Azotée des Plantes, INRA Versailles, France) for their great help in taking care of the plants. This work was partly supported by the Gabi-Génoplante joint project AF2001-092 and by the EU contract BIO4CT97-2231.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unité de Nutrition Azotée des Plantes, INRA, Route de St. Cyr, 78026, Versailles Cedex, France

    Sylvie Ferrario-Méry, Olivier Leleu, Gil Savino & Christian Meyer

  2. Laboratoire Associé de l’INRA, Ghent University, Technologiepark 927, 9052, Ghent, Belgium

    Olivier Leleu

  3. Institut de Biotechnologie des Plantes, Unité Mixte de Recherche 8618 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris Sud-XI, Bât. 630, 91405, Orsay Cedex, France

    Mélanie Bouvet & Michael Hodges

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  1. Sylvie Ferrario-Méry
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  2. Mélanie Bouvet
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  3. Olivier Leleu
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  4. Gil Savino
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  5. Michael Hodges
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  6. Christian Meyer
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Correspondence to Sylvie Ferrario-Méry.

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Ferrario-Méry, S., Bouvet, M., Leleu, O. et al. Physiological characterisation of Arabidopsis mutants affected in the expression of the putative regulatory protein PII. Planta 223, 28–39 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-005-0063-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-005-0063-5

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