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The difference in responses to nitrogen deprivation and re-supply at seedling stage between two barley genotypes differing nitrogen use efficiency

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Abstract

Understanding how crops respond to limited nitrogen supply is essential to develop new ways of manipulating genes for breeding new crop cultivars or lines with high nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). However, little is known about the differences among barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) genotypes in their responses to N starvation and subsequent N re-supply. In this study, two barley genotypes, BI-04 (higher NUE) and BI-45 (lower NUE) were used to investigate N uptake and assimilation at seedling stage in response to N deprivation and re-supply at low (3.75 mM) and normal (7.5 mM) levels. Compared to the continues normal N supply, under N deprivation, both genotypes exhibited less total biomass and N accumulation, but had higher N uptake efficiency, with BI-04 having more biomass, N accumulation and nitrate reductase activity than BI-45. The higher nitrate reductase activity in roots of BI-04 versus BI-45 was associated with up-regulated HvNar1 gene expression under N deprivation condition. NUE of both genotypes was higher under low N re-supply than under normal N re-supply after N deprivation. In addition, glutamine synthetase activity in the two barley roots was higher under low N re-supply than under normal N re-supply, which was associated with the expression of HvGS1_1 and HvGS1_2 genes. Compared to the lower NUE genotype (BI-45), the higher NUE genotype (BI-04) under low N re-supply performed better in response to N stress, and may require relatively less N fertilizer application in production.

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Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank Professor Nigel G. Halford (Rothamsted research, UK) and Dr. Wing-Sham Lee (Rothamsted research, UK) for a critical review of the manuscript. This work was financially supported by the young talent development program from Shanghai Agriculture Committee under terms of Project No. 2014(1-21), the project from Shanghai seed industry development, Shanghai Agricultural Science and Technology No. 2015(3) and the project from National Barley Industry Technology System (CARS-05).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biotech Research Institute, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Agricultural Genetics and Breeding, No.2901, Bei Di Road, Shanghai, 201106, China

    Hongwei Xu, Chenghong Liu, Ruiju Lu, Guimei Guo, Zhiwei Chen, Ting He, Runhong Gao, Yingbo Li & Jianhua Huang

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  1. Hongwei Xu
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  2. Chenghong Liu
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Correspondence to Jianhua Huang.

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Chenghong Liu is the co-first author.

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Xu, H., Liu, C., Lu, R. et al. The difference in responses to nitrogen deprivation and re-supply at seedling stage between two barley genotypes differing nitrogen use efficiency. Plant Growth Regul 79, 119–126 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-015-0117-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-015-0117-z

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