Improving Plant Nutrition via Nuclear Calcium Signalling

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Nitrogen (N) is an essential mineral element required in abundance for plant growth. Plants take up inorganic forms of N (mainly nitrate) in soils and assimilate them for the biosynthesis of various N-containing organic compounds. Nitrogen is one of the most expensive nutrients to supply and commercial nitrate fertilizers represent the major cost in crops production. Paradoxically, it has been estimated that 50-70% of the nitrogen provided to the soil is lost, giving rise to soil and water pollution as well as global warming through emissions of nitrous oxide. Lowering fertilizer input and breeding crops with better nitrogen use efficiency is one of the main goals of plant nutrition research. This project will define a new regulatory pathway at the crossroads between nitrate signalling, nuclear calcium, and root architecture development. The student will use a combination of in vivo imaging analyses, genetics, molecular biology, and chemistry to study how nuclear calcium regulates nitrate signalling.