Essential plant nutrients and recent concepts about their uptake

Abstract

Plants acquire a number of mineral nutrients essential for their metabolism and growth from soil or any other rooting medium. The nutrients have to get through the plasma membrane of root hair cells for use in plant metabolism. According to recent concepts this process is strictly regulated by large groups of genes, which are specific for each nutrient. These genes produce m-RNA transcripts which translate sets of transporter proteins specific for each nutrient. The transporter proteins are lodged inside minute pores located on the plasma membrane. They regulate passage of each nutrient into the cytoplasm. A large number of metabolic enzymes are up- or down-regulated in response to deficiency or sufficiency of plant nutrients. Amino acids, plant growth regulators, intermediate metabolites, and the nutrients themselves are involved in the induction or repression of transporter encoding genes as well as post-translation modification of transporter proteins.