Intracellular signal transduction in legume symbioses

氮（N）是植物生长所必需的大量矿质元素。植物吸收土壤中无机形式的氮（主要是硝酸盐），并将其同化为各种含氮有机化合物的生物合成。氮是最昂贵的营养物质之一，商业硝酸盐肥料是作物生产的主要成本。巧合的是，据估计，提供给土壤的氮中有50-70%损失，导致土壤和水污染，以及通过一氧化二氮的排放导致全球变暖。降低肥料投入，培育氮素利用效率高的作物是植物营养研究的主要目标之一。豆科植物通过与固氮细菌或磷酸盐输送丛枝菌根的结合而成为天然肥料。因此，豆类在可持续农业、提高初级生产和减少化肥使用方面具有巨大潜力。因此，了解豆科植物如何形成共生相互作用对于开发新的农业和育种策略至关重要。本项目将揭示固氮菌与解磷丛枝菌根共生的信号转导机制。学生将使用体内成像分析，遗传学，分子生物学和化学的组合来研究信号感知如何被转导以激活豆类共生体。

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 Ncontaining 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. Legume plants via their association with nitrogen-fixing bacteria or phosphate-delivering arbuscular mycorrhiza are natural fertilizers. Thus, Legume have enormous potential for sustainable agriculture, enhancement of primary production with reduced fertilizer use. Understanding how Legume plants do form symbioses interactions is thus essential to develop new agricultural and breeding strategies. This project will unravel novel signal transduction mechanism leading to nitrogen-fixing bacteria and phosphate delivering arbuscular mycorrhiza symbioses. The student will use a combination of in vivo imaging analyses, genetics, molecular biology, and chemistry to study how signals perception are transduced to activate Legume symbioses.