Plant roots serve as the vital link between plants and soil, facilitating the uptake of essential nutrients crucial for growth. They absorb water and minerals from the soil, transporting them throughout the plant.
Root system architecture and physiology are pivotal in efficiently extracting nutrients from the soil. Roots spread out and delve deep into the soil to access various nutrient sources. Lateral roots and root hairs enhance the surface area available for absorption. Conversely, nutrient availability and deficiencies influence root system architecture in diverse ways.
Within the Root Development group, a significant focus lies on exploring these interactions, particularly concerning nitrogen and phosphate. Our objective is to unravel how roots adapt to distinct nutrient conditions, how this is regulated, and how root developmental processes can be modulated to enhance nutrient use efficiency.
Nitrate-dependent regulation of lateral root formation (Pélissier et al, 2021).
The Root Development group typically employ both traditional and cutting-edge molecular and biotechnological methodologies to investigate these pathways. Additional, we frequently utilize chemical genetics, screening large small molecule collections to identify molecules that affect a process of interest. This not only provides a powerful approach to understand plant biology, but also enables the discovery of small molecule biostimulants. We have been at the forefront of this approach in the field of plant science, exemplified by the discovery of Bikinin, a potent activator of brassinosteroid signaling pivotal for studying this pathway (De Rybel et al., 2009). Recent efforts have concentrated to identifying molecules that enhance nitrogen or phosphate use efficiency. Through this research, we aim to enhance our understanding of nutrient uptake mechanisms and identify molecules that can improve nutrient use efficiency.
As the root grows in the soil, it is also important to understand what is happening there. Nitrification, the microbial conversion of ammonia to nitrate, significantly influences nutrient availability for plants. Nitrate leaches more easily in the soil and can be further converted via the nitrogen cycle, not only leading to loss of the nutrient for the plant, but also leading to environmental nitrogen pollution, including the formation of the highly potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. As a result, inhibition of nitrification increases nitrogen use in the field, which prompted us to study nitrification. Leveraging our expertise in small molecules screens, we have developed screening assays to discover new nitrification inhibitors and identified and characterized multiple new compounds that can be used to enhance fertilizer efficiency (Beeckman et al., 2023).
We also approach this research line from a root viewpoint, as roots of certain plants naturally produce and secrete metabolites known as biological nitrification inhibitors. Current research efforts are dedicated to identifying, characterizing, and exploring the potential applications of novel biological nitrification inhibitors.
Nitrification, where the first and rate limiting step depends on the AMO enzyme, does not only result in poor nitrogen use efficiency for the plants, but also in environmental nitrogen pollution.
Schematic overview of high-throughput assays using nitrifying micro-organisms employed for small molecule screening and identify novel nitrification inhibitors.
Selected publications
De Rybel B, Audenaert D, Vert G, Rozhon W, Mayerhofer J, Peelman F, Coutuer S, Denayer T, Jansen L, Nguyen L, Vanhoutte I, Beemster GTS, Vleminckx K, Jonak C, Chory J, Inzé D, Russinova E and Beeckman T (2009). "Chemical Inhibition of a Subset of Arabidopsis thaliana GSK3-like Kinases Activates Brassinosteroid Signaling." Chemistry & biology 16(6): 594-604. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chembiol.2009.04.008
Crombez H, Motte H and Beeckman T (2019). "Tackling Plant Phosphate Starvation by the Roots." Developmental Cell 48(5): 599-615. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2019.01.002
Pélissier P-M, Motte H and Beeckman T (2021). "Lateral root formation and nutrients: nitrogen in the spotlight." Plant Physiology 187(3): 1104-1116. https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiab145
Beeckman F, Drozdzecki A, De Knijf A, Corrochano-Monsalve M, Bodé S, Blom P, Goeminne G, González-Murua C, Lücker S, Boeckx P, Stevens CV, Audenaert D, Beeckman T and Motte H (2023). "Drug discovery-based approach identifies new nitrification inhibitors." Journal of Environmental Management 346: 118996. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118996
Beeckman F, Annetta L, Corrochano-Monsalve M, Beeckman T and Motte H (2024). "Enhancing Agroecosystem Nitrogen Management: Microbial Insights for Improved Nitrification Inhibition." Trends in Microbiology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2023.10.009
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