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

本项目对植物体内矿物质营养平衡的研究包括几个不同的方面，以了解体内平衡的机制。对于人们了解相对有限的营养物质，我们分离了新的拟南芥突变体，鉴定了相关基因，并对基因产物的功能进行了表征。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，我们确定了几种用于摄取和转运的硼转运体。在这个项目中，我们揭示了调控的新方面，包括核糖体- rna复合物的硼传感。我们还构建了数学模型，以全面了解整体调控机制。利用该模型对拟南芥根系硼积累规律进行了预测，并通过试验验证了预测结果。

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.