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JXB Advance Access published online on June 13, 2008
Journal of Experimental Botany, doi:10.1093/jxb/ern148
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© 2008 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/2.0/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

Adaptation of Arabidopsis to nitrogen limitation involves induction of anthocyanin synthesis which is controlled by the NLA gene

Mingsheng Peng1 *, Darryl Hudson1, Andrew Schofield1, Rong Tsao2, Raymond Yang2, Honglan Gu1, Yong-Mei Bi1 and Steven. J. Rothstein1,{dagger}

1Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1
2Food Research Program, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 93 Stone Road West, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, N1G 5C9

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rothstei{at}uoguelph.ca

Plants can survive a limiting nitrogen (N) supply by developing a set of N limitation adaptive responses. However, the Arabidopsis nla (nitrogen limitation adaptation) mutant fails to produce such responses, and cannot adapt to N limitation. In this study, the nla mutant was utilized to understand further the effect of NLA on Arabidopsis adaptation to N limitation. Grown with limiting N, the nla mutant could not accumulate anthocyanins and instead produced an N limitation-induced early senescence phenotype. In contrast, when supplied with limiting N and limiting phosphorus (Pi), the nla mutants accumulated abundant anthocyanins and did not show the N limitation-induced early senescence phenotype. These results support the hypothesis that Arabidopsis has a specific pathway to control N limitation-induced anthocyanin synthesis, and the nla mutation disrupts this pathway. However, the nla mutation does not affect the Pi limitation-induced anthocyanin synthesis pathway. Therefore, Pi limitation induced the nla mutant to accumulate anthocyanins under N limitation and allowed this mutant to adapt to N limitation. Under N limitation, the nla mutant had a significantly down-regulated expression of many genes functioning in anthocyanin synthesis, and an enhanced expression of genes involved in lignin production. Correspondingly, the nla mutant grown with limiting N showed a significantly lower production of anthocyanins (particularly cyanidins) and an increase in lignin contents compared with wild-type plants. These data suggest that NLA controls Arabidopsis adaptability to N limitation by channelling the phenylpropanoid metabolic flux to the induced anthocyanin synthesis, which is important for Arabidopsis to adapt to N limitation.

Key words: Anthocyanin, Arabidopsis, adaptation, lignin, N limitation, nla mutant, phosphorus limitation

* Present address: Monsanto Company, 700 Chesterfield Parkway West, GG5B, Chesterfield, MO 63017, USA

Received 14 February 2008; Revised 29 February 2008 Accepted 1 May 2008


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