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JXB Advance Access originally published online on September 9, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany 2009 60(15):4301-4314; doi:10.1093/jxb/erp271
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© 2009 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This paper is available online free of all access charges (see http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/open_access.html for further details)

RESEARCH PAPER

The ‘trade-off’ between synthesis of primary and secondary compounds in young tomato leaves is altered by nitrate nutrition: experimental evidence and model consistency

Jacques Le Bot1,*, Camille Bénard2, Christophe Robin2, Frédéric Bourgaud2 and Stéphane Adamowicz1

1INRA, UR 1115 Plantes et Systèmes de Culture Horticoles, F-84000 Avignon, France
2UMR Nancy-Université (INPL)-INRA Agronomie et Environnement Nancy-Colmar 1121, ENSAIA, 2 Av. Forêt de Haye, F-54500 Vandoeuvre, France

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Jacques.Lebot{at}avignon.inra.fr

Plants allocate internal resources to fulfil essential, yet possibly conflicting, demands such as defence or growth, as hypothesized by the ‘growth–differentiation balance theory’ (GDB). This trade-off was examined in young tomato plants grown for 25 d using the nutrient film technique with seven nitrate concentrations ([NO3]). The modification of primary (growth-related: organic acids, carbohydrates) and secondary (defence-related: phenolics) metabolite concentrations in leaves was assessed. Then a simple model was devised to simulate the trade-off between growth and secondary metabolism in response to N nutrition. N affected growth and metabolite concentrations in the leaves. Dry biomass, leaf area, and concentrations of nitrate and organic acid (malic, citric) increased with rising [NO3], up to a threshold, above which they remained constant. Starch, sucrose, and organic N concentrations were invariant with [NO3]. Glucose, fructose, and phenolic (chlorogenic acid, rutin, and kaempferol-rutinoside) concentrations were highest at lowest [NO3]. They declined progressively with rising [NO3] until a threshold, above which they remained constant. Model predictions are in phase with experimental phenolic concentration data although the simulated metabolic rates differ from the GDBH proposals depicted in the literature. From the model output it is shown that a careful definition of the C reserve compounds is required.

Key words: Growth–differentiation balance hypothesis (GDBH), leaf composition, major phenolics (chlorogenic acid, rutin and kaempferol-rutinoside), model, nitrate limitation, primary C compounds, Solanum lycopersicum L. (formerlyly Lycopersicon esculentum Mill., tomato)

Received 16 July 2009; Revised 16 July 2009 Accepted 12 August 2009


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