Homeostasis of Plant Mineral Nutrients and Growth- Modeling of Overall Regulation

本计画探讨植物体内矿质营养的动态平衡，包括了解动态平衡机制的几个不同方面。对于营养素的了解相对有限，我们分离出新的拟南芥突变体在适应低营养条件下的缺陷，确定负责基因和基因产物的功能的特点。发现了Ca、Mg、Mn、Cu和Mo的新基因。 并对硼的稳态机制进行了深入分析。 在项目开始之前，我们确定了几种硼转运蛋白的吸收和转运。 在这个项目中，我们揭示了新的方面的监管，包括硼传感核糖体RNA复合物。 并构建了数学模型，全面了解了整体调控机制。 利用该模型预测了拟南芥根中硼的积累模式，并通过实验验证了模型的正确性。

This project on the mineral nutrient homeostasis in plants includes several different aspects for the understanding of mechanisms of homeostasis. For the nutrients with relatively limited understanding, we isolated novel Arabidopsis mutants defective in acclimation to low nutrient conditions, identified responsible genes and characterized the functions of the gene products. Novel genes were found for Ca, Mg, Mn, Cu and Mo. In-depth analyses of the homeostasis mechanism of boron were also conducted. Before the initiation of the project, we identified several boron transporters for uptake and translocation. In this project we revealed novel aspects of regulation including boron sensing by ribosome-RNA complexes. We also constructed mathematical model to comprehensively understand the overall regulation mechanisms. Based on the model we predicted boron accumulation pattern in the root of Arabidopsis and the prediction was confirmed by experimental examination.