Cell wall charge in roots and its role in nutrient acquisition.

Elke Barbez

Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology (MoPP), Faculty of Biology, Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany / CIBSS - Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies, Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany
Germany

Where: Jozef Shell Seminar room
When: Thursday, 12 September, 2024 - 11:00

Invited by Yves Van de Peer and Ive De Smet

Similar to all living organisms, plants have specific nutritional needs to grow and develop optimally. While animals predominantly rely on nutrients of organic origin, plants primarily absorb inorganic minerals from the soil. Plant mineral nutrients are found in the soil primarily as charged ions, which facilitates their interaction with root systems and their subsequent uptake by plant cells. Plant cells are surrounded by a rigid extracellular matrix (called the cell wall), which is negatively charged. In my group, we molecularly dissect the hypothesis that the acquisition of charged mineral nutrients is directly supported by the charged state of the root cell wall. We demonstrate that the cell wall charge is adaptively regulated to optimize the absorption of cationic nutrients. In order to address this question, we develop molecular tools for the in-vitro as well as in-vivo assessment of root cell wall charge in Arabidopsis roots. Our data reveals that nutrient availability impacts on the dynamic regulation of cell wall charge enabling optimized plant growth adaptation. Gaining insight into how plants mine their nutrients and how plants adjust themselves to limited or excessive nutrient availability may help to optimize and eventually reduce the usage of expensive and often harmful fertilizers in agriculture.