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Genetic Engineering and Genome Editing for Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Plants

Low nitrogen availability is one of the main limiting factors for plant growth and development, and high doses of N fertilizers are necessary to achieve high yields in agriculture. However, most N is not used by plants and pollutes the environment. This situation can be improved by enhancing the nit...

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Autores principales: Lebedev, Vadim G., Popova, Anna A., Shestibratov, Konstantin A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8699818/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34943810
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cells10123303
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author Lebedev, Vadim G.
Popova, Anna A.
Shestibratov, Konstantin A.
author_facet Lebedev, Vadim G.
Popova, Anna A.
Shestibratov, Konstantin A.
author_sort Lebedev, Vadim G.
collection PubMed
description Low nitrogen availability is one of the main limiting factors for plant growth and development, and high doses of N fertilizers are necessary to achieve high yields in agriculture. However, most N is not used by plants and pollutes the environment. This situation can be improved by enhancing the nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in plants. NUE is a complex trait driven by multiple interactions between genetic and environmental factors, and its improvement requires a fundamental understanding of the key steps in plant N metabolism—uptake, assimilation, and remobilization. This review summarizes two decades of research into bioengineering modification of N metabolism to increase the biomass accumulation and yield in crops. The expression of structural and regulatory genes was most often altered using overexpression strategies, although RNAi and genome editing techniques were also used. Particular attention was paid to woody plants, which have great economic importance, play a crucial role in the ecosystems and have fundamental differences from herbaceous species. The review also considers the issue of unintended effects of transgenic plants with modified N metabolism, e.g., early flowering—a research topic which is currently receiving little attention. The future prospects of improving NUE in crops, essential for the development of sustainable agriculture, using various approaches and in the context of global climate change, are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-86998182021-12-24 Genetic Engineering and Genome Editing for Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Plants Lebedev, Vadim G. Popova, Anna A. Shestibratov, Konstantin A. Cells Review Low nitrogen availability is one of the main limiting factors for plant growth and development, and high doses of N fertilizers are necessary to achieve high yields in agriculture. However, most N is not used by plants and pollutes the environment. This situation can be improved by enhancing the nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in plants. NUE is a complex trait driven by multiple interactions between genetic and environmental factors, and its improvement requires a fundamental understanding of the key steps in plant N metabolism—uptake, assimilation, and remobilization. This review summarizes two decades of research into bioengineering modification of N metabolism to increase the biomass accumulation and yield in crops. The expression of structural and regulatory genes was most often altered using overexpression strategies, although RNAi and genome editing techniques were also used. Particular attention was paid to woody plants, which have great economic importance, play a crucial role in the ecosystems and have fundamental differences from herbaceous species. The review also considers the issue of unintended effects of transgenic plants with modified N metabolism, e.g., early flowering—a research topic which is currently receiving little attention. The future prospects of improving NUE in crops, essential for the development of sustainable agriculture, using various approaches and in the context of global climate change, are discussed. MDPI 2021-11-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8699818/ /pubmed/34943810 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cells10123303 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Lebedev, Vadim G.
Popova, Anna A.
Shestibratov, Konstantin A.
Genetic Engineering and Genome Editing for Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Plants
title Genetic Engineering and Genome Editing for Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Plants
title_full Genetic Engineering and Genome Editing for Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Plants
title_fullStr Genetic Engineering and Genome Editing for Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Plants
title_full_unstemmed Genetic Engineering and Genome Editing for Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Plants
title_short Genetic Engineering and Genome Editing for Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Plants
title_sort genetic engineering and genome editing for improving nitrogen use efficiency in plants
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8699818/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34943810
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cells10123303
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