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JXB Advance Access published online on May 23, 2005
Journal of Experimental Botany, doi:10.1093/jxb/eri171
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© The Author [2005]. Published by Oxford University Press [on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology]. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org
Received December 6, 2004
Accepted March 31, 2005

FOCUS PAPER

Nitrate assimilation in Lotus japonicus

Antonio J. Márquez 1*, Marco Betti 1, Margarita García-Calderón 1, Peter Pal'ove-Balang 2, Pedro Díaz 3, and Jorge Monza 4

1 Departamento de Bioquímica Vegetal y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Química, Universidad de Sevilla, Apartado 553, E-41080 Sevilla, Spain
2 Departamento de Bioquímica Vegetal y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Química, Universidad de Sevilla, Apartado 553, E-41080 Sevilla, Spain; Institute of Botany, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 14, SK-842 23-Bratislava, Slovakia
3 Departamento de Bioquímica Vegetal y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Química, Universidad de Sevilla, Apartado 553, E-41080 Sevilla, Spain; Laboratorio de Bioquímica, Departamento de Biología Vegetal, Facultad de Agronomía, Avda. E. Garzón 780, CP 12900, Montevideo, Uruguay
4 Laboratorio de Bioquímica, Departamento de Biología Vegetal, Facultad de Agronomía, Avda. E. Garzón 780, CP 12900, Montevideo, Uruguay

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Antonio J. Márquez, E-mail: cabeza{at}us.es


  Abstract

This paper summarizes some recent advances in the understanding of nitrate assimilation in the model legume Lotus japonicus. First, different types of experimental evidence are presented that emphasize the importance of the root in the nitrate-reducing assimilatory processes in this plant. Secondly, the main results from an ethyl methanesulphonate mutagenesis programme are presented. In this programme, chlorate-resistant and photorespiratory mutants were produced and characterized. The phenotype of one particular chlorate-resistant mutant suggested the importance of a low-affinity nitrate transport system for growth of L. japonicus plants under nitrate nutrition. The phenotype of photorespiratory mutants, affected in all forms of plastid glutamine synthetase in leaves, roots, and nodules, indicated that plastid glutamine synthetase was not required for primary nitrate assimilation nor for the symbiotic associations of the plant (nodulation, mycorrhization), provided photorespiration was suppressed. However, the phenotype of these mutants confirmed that plastid glutamine synthetase was required for the reassimilation of ammonium released by photorespiration. Finally, different aspects of the relationship between nitrate assimilation and osmotic stress in L. japonicus are also discussed, with specific reference to the biosynthesis of proline as an osmolyte.

Keywords: Ammonium; drought; mutants; nitrogen; osmotic stress; roots; salt; transgenic plants.
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