Nitrogen (N) is an essential element of organic molecules, such as amino acids and proteins, but is often limited in plants. Thus, N use efficiency (NUE) directly impacts overall yield and performance of bioenergy and agricultural crops. Improved NUE can also reduce the use of N fertilizers and environmental issues caused by N eutrophication. Despite the critical roles N play in both plant productivity and environmental health, unlike extensively-studied carbon (C) flux map of plant metabolism, little is known about how assimilated N flows through the metabolic network, namely the “N flux map (NFM)”. The lack of understanding of NFM represents a fundamental and critical knowledge gap in plant biology and agriculture. The main objectives of this project are to construct plant NFMs from plant genomes and to determine system-level functionality of plant N metabolic network. The obtained NFMs will provide a novel framework to advance basic understanding of plant N metabolism and facilitate rational engineering of plants having high productivity with limited N input.
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Acknowledgement
This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Genomic Science Program grant no. DE-SC0020390, and DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI), Community Science Program (CSP)-503757
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