CHARACTERIZATION OF PROTEOMIC CHANGES IN CROPS DURING METABOLIC ADAPTATION TO DIFFERENT NITROGEN INPUTS
Tesi di Dottorato
Data di Pubblicazione:
2023
Citazione:
CHARACTERIZATION OF PROTEOMIC CHANGES IN CROPS DURING METABOLIC ADAPTATION TO DIFFERENT NITROGEN INPUTS / C. Muratore ; tutor: B. Prinsi; supervisori esterni: A. Masi, M.R. Abenavoli ; coordinatore: P. A. Bianco. Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie e Ambientali - Produzione, Territorio, Agroenergia, 2023 Jan 19. 35. ciclo, Anno Accademico 2022.
Abstract:
Nitrogen availability is one of the major factors that influence plant growth, morphology, and metabolism and, hence, crop productivity. In agricultural soils, nitrogen is present in different forms, both inorganic (nitrate and ammonium) and organic (amino acids, short peptides and urea), with variable and heterogeneous distribution. Nowadays, improving knowledge about the nitrogen nutrition in plants is crucial to address the urgent need for a more sustainable agricultural production. In the last years, the “-omics” approaches provided a holistic perspective of the molecular mechanisms underlying plant metabolic adaptations to different nitrogen inputs. Among these, proteomics was largely and successfully applied to analyze various aspects, including the role of post-translational modifications and enzyme isoforms. The aim of this PhD project was to obtain new insights about the biochemical events during sensing and adaptation to different availabilities of nitrogen forms in crops, through an approach based on the integration of physiological, metabolic and proteomic evaluations.
The first research activity consisted in an extensive literature revision about plant nitrogen nutrition and plant proteomics, which led to the publication of a review article. This activity highlighted that the majority of the information derives from studies conducted in Arabidopsis and in model crops, such as maize, rice and tomato. Nevertheless, analogies and peculiarities remain to be verified in other crop species. For instance, nitrogen nutrition has been only slightly investigated in perennial plants, and proteomics has been rarely applied in this context. At the same time, although in herbaceous species great progress has been made in understanding plant metabolic responses to inorganic nitrogen forms, several aspects await a clear elucidation. A representative case consists in the fact that a clear overview of the role of specific subcellular compartments during nitrate and/or ammonium nutrition is still fragmentary. Moreover, the literature revision pointed out an increased interest in understanding the relevance of organic nitrogen forms as nutrients influencing plant growth and development. Although it is recognised that plants are able to take up organic forms of nitrogen, such as amino acids, their actual contribution to plant nitrogen nutrition is currently unknown. Starting from these considerations, during the PhD three studies have been designed and conducted, leading to the publication of an article and the preparation of two manuscripts.
The first study was devoted to the analysis of nitrogen metabolism in a perennial woody species. In particular, it was aimed at investigating the biochemical and proteomic responses to nitrate in a grapevine rootstock genotype. Indeed, even though grapevine has been adopted as a model perennial species, little is known about the biochemical roles played by roots in nitrogen acquisition. Moreover, this topic has never been addressed through a proteomic approach.
The aim of the second study was to deepen the knowledge about the responses to nitrate, ammonium or their co-provision in maize seedlings, adopting a novel proteomic approach. Specifically, key proteins involved in these biochemical mechanisms are localized in different cellular compartments and their functionality is deeply affected by the kind of inorganic source. Hence, a subcellular proteomic approach was applied to obtain new insights about the roles of distinct organelles in the ability of roots to manage different inorganic nitrogen availabilities.
Finally, the third study aimed to investigate whether maize plants are able of using and metabolizing amino acids as nitrogen source, when they were externally supplied as a mixtur
Tipologia IRIS:
Tesi di dottorato
Keywords:
plant mineral nutrition; organic nitrogen; nitrate; ammonium; amino acids; subcellular proteomics
Elenco autori:
C. Muratore
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