ZmPHR1 and ZmPHR2 Mediate Metabolic and Microbial Regulation of Maize Adaptation to Phosphorus Heterogeneity.
Sun Y, Fu C, Wang Y, Peng L, Li S
Crop Improvement
PubMedCheaper, more nutritious corn at the grocery store gets closer to reality as farmers learn to grow crops that find their own fertilizer instead of needing heavy phosphorus applications dumped across entire fields.
Corn plants have two molecular switches that help them cope with patchy soil — where some spots are rich in phosphorus and others are poor. Scientists found that one switch mainly controls how roots grow and branch out to find nutrients, while the other switch manages the whole plant's energy and health, including the tiny bacteria and fungi living in the soil around the roots. When either switch is broken, the plant loses its ability to send roots hunting into nutrient-rich patches, which stunts its growth.
Key Findings
Mutation of ZmPHR2 severely impaired shoot development, photosynthetic efficiency, and whole-plant phosphorus distribution, while ZmPHR1 mutation mainly affected root shape and branching patterns.
Loss of either transcription factor completely abolished the ability of maize roots to preferentially grow into phosphorus-rich soil patches, a key survival strategy in patchy soils.
Both mutations disrupted the composition and network structure of bacterial and fungal communities in the root zone, linking plant genetics directly to soil microbiome assembly.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists discovered how two genetic switches in maize control the plant's ability to find and absorb phosphorus spread unevenly through soil, linking these switches to both root growth behavior and the communities of microbes living around the roots.
Abstract Preview
Spatial heterogeneity of soil phosphorus (P) severely constrains maize productivity, yet the regulatory mechanisms underlying plant adaptation to heterogeneous P supply remain poorly understood. Th...
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Maize, also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. The leafy stalk of the plant gives rise to male inflorescences or tassels which produce pollen, and female inflorescences called ears. The ears yield grain, known as kernels or seeds. In modern ...