Project description:Water availability is a key determinant of terrestrial plant productivity. Many climate models predict that water stress will increasingly challenge agricultural yields and exacerbate projected food deficits. To ensure food security and increase agricultural efficiency, crop water productivity must be increased. Research over past decades has established that the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) is a central regulator of water use and directly regulates stomatal opening and transpiration. In this study, we investigated whether the water productivity of wheat could be improved by increasing its ABA sensitivity. We show that overexpression of a wheat ABA receptor increases wheat ABA sensitivity, which significantly lowers a plant’s lifetime water consumption. Physiological analyses demonstrated that this water-saving trait is a consequence of reduced transpiration and a concomitant increase in photosynthetic activity, which together boost grain production per liter of water and protect productivity during water deficit. Our findings provide a general strategy for increasing water productivity that should be applicable to other crops because of the high conservation of the ABA signaling pathway.
Project description:The spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) into agricultural soils, products, and foods severely limits the use of organic fertilizers in agriculture. In this study, experimental land plots were fertilized, sown, and harvested for two consecutive agricultural cycles using either mineral or three types of organic fertilizers: sewage sludge, pig slurry, or composted organic fraction of municipal solid waste. The analysis of the relative abundances of more than 200,000 ASV (Amplicon Sequence Variants) allowed the identification of a small, but significant (<10%) overlap between soil and fertilizer microbiomes, particularly in soils sampled the same day of the harvest (post-harvest soils). Loads of clinically relevant ARG were significantly higher (up to 100 fold) in fertilized soils relative to the initial soil. The highest increases corresponded to post-harvest soils treated with organic fertilizers, and they correlated with the extend of the contribution of fertilizers to the soil microbiome. Edible products (lettuce and radish) showed low, but measurable loads of ARG (sul1 for lettuces and radish, tetM for lettuces). These loads were minimal in mineral fertilized soils, and strongly dependent on the type of fertilizer. We concluded that at least part of the observed increase on ARG loads in soils and foodstuffs were actual contributions from the fertilizer microbiomes. Thus, we propose that adequate waste management and good pharmacological and veterinarian practices may significantly reduce the potential health risk posed by the presence of ARG in agricultural soils and plant products.
Project description:Two-stage channels are a relatively new best management practice design used to treat nonpoint pollution. Soils collected from these channels in agricultural ditches were analyzed to elucidate the microbial functionality of the system.
Project description:mRNA sequencing of leaf in the flowering stage was performed to reveals gene regulation in relation to water use efficiency in soybean
Project description:<p>We used time-resolved metabolic footprinting, an important technical approach used to monitor changes in extracellular compound concentrations during microbial growth, to study the order of substrate utilization (i.e., substrate preferences) and kinetics of a fast-growing soil isolate, <em>Paraburkholderia</em> sp. strain 1N. The growth of <em>Paraburkholderia</em> sp. 1N was monitored under aerobic conditions in a soil-extracted solubilized organic matter medium, representing a realistic diversity of available substrates and gradient of initial concentrations. We combined multiple analytical approaches to track over 150 compounds in the medium and complemented this with bulk carbon and nitrogen measurements, allowing estimates of carbon use efficiency throughout the growth curve. Targeted methods allowed the quantification of common low-molecular-weight substrates: glucose, 20 amino acids, and 9 organic acids. All targeted compounds were depleted from the medium, and depletion followed a sigmoidal curve where sufficient data were available. Substrates were utilized in at least three distinct temporal clusters as <em>Paraburkholderia</em> sp. 1N produced biomass at a cumulative carbon use efficiency of 0.43. The two substrates with highest initial concentrations, glucose and valine, exhibited longer usage windows, at higher biomass-normalized rates, and later in the growth curve. Contrary to hypotheses based on previous studies, we found no clear relationship between substrate nominal oxidation state of carbon (NOSC) or maximal growth rate and the order of substrate depletion. Under soil solution conditions, the growth of <em>Paraburkholderia</em> sp. 1N induced multiauxic substrate depletion patterns that could not be explained by the traditional paradigm of catabolite repression.</p><p><strong>IMPORTANCE:</strong> Exometabolomic footprinting methods have the capability to provide time-resolved observations of the uptake and release of hundreds of compounds during microbial growth. Of particular interest is microbial phenotyping under environmentally relevant soil conditions, consisting of relatively low concentrations and modeling pulse input events. Here, we show that growth of a bacterial soil isolate, <em>Paraburkholderia</em> sp. 1N, on a dilute soil extract resulted in a multiauxic metabolic response, characterized by discrete temporal clusters of substrate depletion and metabolite production. Our data did not support the hypothesis that compounds with lower energy content are used preferentially, as each cluster contained compounds with a range of nominal oxidation states of carbon. These new findings with <em>Paraburkholderia</em> sp. 1N, which belongs to a metabolically diverse genus, provide insights on ecological strategies employed by aerobic heterotrophs competing for low-molecular-weight substrates in soil solution.</p>
Project description:Nitrate (NO3-) is crucial for optimal plant growth and development and often limits crop productivity at the low availability. In comparison with model plant Arabidopsis, the molecular mechanisms underlying NO3- acquisition and utilization remain largely unclear in maize. In particular, only a few genes have been exploited to improve nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). Here, we demonstrated that NO3--inducible ZmNRT1.1B (ZmNPF6.6) positively regulated NO3--dependent growth and NUE in maize. We showed that the tandem duplicated proteoform ZmNRT1.1C is irrelevant to maize seedling growth under nitrate supply, however, loss-of-function of ZmNRT1.1B significantly weakened plant growth under adequate NO3- supply in both hydroponic and field conditions. 15N-labeled NO3- absorption assay indicated that ZmNRT1.1B mediated high-affinity NO3--transport and root-to-shoot NO3- translocation. Furthermore, upon NO3- supply, ZmNRT1.1B promotes cytoplasmic-to-nuclear shuttling of ZmNLP3.1 (ZmNLP8), which co-regulates the expression of genes involved in NO3- response, cytokinin biosynthesis and carbon metabolism. Remarkably, overexpression of ZmNRT1.1B in modern maize hybrids improved grain yield under nitrogen (N) limiting fields. Taken together, our study revealed a crucial role of ZmNRT1.1B in high-affinity NO3- transport and signaling and offers valuable genetic resource for breeding nitrogen use efficient high-yield cultivars.