How Legume Plants Provide Oxygen to Symbiotic Bacteria in their Roots

The discovery of the genetics inside legume plants that manage the production of an oxygen-carrying molecule essential to their relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria is a significant breakthrough in the field of sustainable agriculture. Legumes have a unique ability to form a symbiotic relationship with bacteria in their roots, which convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia that could be used by the plant as a fertilizer.

Legume Plant’s relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria

As a result, legume plants have a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria called rhizobia, which live in nodules on the roots of the plants. However, these bacteria can transform atmospheric nitrogen into a form that the plant can use, which is typically in the form of ammonia.

In the symbiotic relationship between legume plants and rhizobia bacteria, the plants provide the bacteria with a source of energy in the form of carbohydrates. In contrast, the bacteria provide the plant with usable nitrogen. The process of nitrogen fixation requires energy in the form of ATP, which is produced by the bacteria through the process of respiration, where oxygen is consumed, and CO2 is produced.

Leghemoglobin is a protein that is similar in structure to hemoglobin, which is found in the blood of animals. Leghemoglobin helps to regulate the amount of oxygen that is available to the rhizobia bacteria living in the nodules of legume roots.

Scope of the research

Transcription reasons are proteins that bind to specific DNA sequences and regulate the expression of genes. It’s not surprising that there are transcription factors that control the production of leghemoglobin in legume nodules.

Therefore, understanding the regulation of leghemoglobin production and the microaerobic environment required for nitrogen fixation in legume plants could have important implications for agriculture.

Improving nitrogen fixation in vegetable crops could reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizers, which can be expensive and have negative environmental impacts.

Dr. Jeremy Murray adds that, while multiple genes associated with other nodulation processes have been identified, this is the first discovery on the genetics regulatory network involved straight in control of nitrogen fixation.

Collaborative research efforts can bring together expertise from multiple disciplines and institutions, leading to new insights and discoveries.

The involvement of researchers from different countries and institutions in this study also highlights the global nature of scientific research and the importance of international collaborations in advancing scientific knowledge.

Nitrogen fixation

Medicago truncatula is a commonly used model legume plant for studying nodulation and nitrogen fixation. The research team’s use of this plant to study the family of proteins involved in nodulation is an excellent example of how model organisms can be used to gain insights into biological processes.

The identification of NIN and NLP2 as proteins involved in nitrogen fixation is significant, as it suggests that these proteins play a critical role in regulating the production of leghemoglobin and maintaining the microaerobic environment required for nitrogen fixation. The reduction in nitrogen fixation observed when these proteins are inactive further supports their importance in this process.

Legume plant’s discoveries

Curiosity-driven research can often lead to unexpected and significant discoveries, as was the case with this study. The researchers’ initial observation of high expression of the transcription factors in nitrogen-fixing cells led them to investigate their role in nitrogen fixation, which ultimately led to the discovery of their involvement in regulating leghemoglobin production.

The discovery that members of the transcription factor family control the production of non-symbiotic hemoglobins in plants is also significant, as it suggests a possible evolutionary link between the two processes. This finding could provide new insights into the evolution of symbiotic relationships between plants and microorganisms and how these relationships have contributed to the development of complex biological systems.

In conclusion, the discovery that these transcription factors and their hemoglobin targets are involved in both non-symbiotic and symbiotic processes suggests that there may be a shared molecular mechanism underlying these processes. However, the recruitment of these modules to nodulation could have provided an energetic advantage to nitrogen-fixing cells, which may have helped to drive the evolution of the symbiotic relationship between legumes and nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

Read the original article on Scitechdaily.

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Reference: “NIN-like protein transcription factors regulate leghemoglobin genes in legume nodules” by Suyu Jiang, Marie-Françoise Jardinaud, Jinpeng Gao, Yann Pecrix, Jiangqi Wen, Kirankumar Mysore, Ping Xu, Carmen Sanchez-Canizares, Yiting Ruan, Qiujiu Li, Meijun Zhu, Fuyu Li, Ertao Wang, Phillip S. Poole, Pascal Gamas and Jeremy D. Murray, 28 October 2021, Science.
DOI: 10.1126/science.abg5945