Identification of conserved genes involved in nitrogen metabolic activities in wheat

Abstract

Nitrogen (N) plays a very important role in crop growth and development. Many N- metabolism-related genes responsive to N application have been identified in many plants such as Arabidopsis, rice and maize; however, few genes have been reported in wheat, which is one of the most widely grown crops in the world. In this study, a wheat wild type with N dependent lesion mimic (LM) and its mutants without LM were used to identify conserved N-metabolism-related genes. TaPAP, TaUPS and TaNMR were differentially expressed amongNlevels both in the wild type and two of its mutants, and the expression patterns of these genes were further studied under application of three chemotypes of N (NH4+ , NO3- and NH4NO3). The results showed that these genes are conserved N-metabolism-related genes and TaNMR is a novel player in N-metabolism.