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      Roots Withstanding their Environment: Exploiting Root System Architecture Responses to Abiotic Stress to Improve Crop Tolerance

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          Abstract

          To face future challenges in crop production dictated by global climate changes, breeders and plant researchers collaborate to develop productive crops that are able to withstand a wide range of biotic and abiotic stresses. However, crop selection is often focused on shoot performance alone, as observation of root properties is more complex and asks for artificial and extensive phenotyping platforms. In addition, most root research focuses on development, while a direct link to the functionality of plasticity in root development for tolerance is often lacking. In this paper we review the currently known root system architecture (RSA) responses in Arabidopsis and a number of crop species to a range of abiotic stresses, including nutrient limitation, drought, salinity, flooding, and extreme temperatures. For each of these stresses, the key molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the RSA response are highlighted. To explore the relevance for crop selection, we especially review and discuss studies linking root architectural responses to stress tolerance. This will provide a first step toward understanding the relevance of adaptive root development for a plant’s response to its environment. We suggest that functional evidence on the role of root plasticity will support breeders in their efforts to include root properties in their current selection pipeline for abiotic stress tolerance, aimed to improve the robustness of crops.

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          Control of root system architecture by DEEPER ROOTING 1 increases rice yield under drought conditions.

          The genetic improvement of drought resistance is essential for stable and adequate crop production in drought-prone areas. Here we demonstrate that alteration of root system architecture improves drought avoidance through the cloning and characterization of DEEPER ROOTING 1 (DRO1), a rice quantitative trait locus controlling root growth angle. DRO1 is negatively regulated by auxin and is involved in cell elongation in the root tip that causes asymmetric root growth and downward bending of the root in response to gravity. Higher expression of DRO1 increases the root growth angle, whereby roots grow in a more downward direction. Introducing DRO1 into a shallow-rooting rice cultivar by backcrossing enabled the resulting line to avoid drought by increasing deep rooting, which maintained high yield performance under drought conditions relative to the recipient cultivar. Our experiments suggest that control of root system architecture will contribute to drought avoidance in crops.
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            Nitrate-regulated auxin transport by NRT1.1 defines a mechanism for nutrient sensing in plants.

            Nitrate is both a nitrogen source for higher plants and a signal molecule regulating their development. In Arabidopsis, the NRT1.1 nitrate transporter is crucial for nitrate signaling governing root growth, and has been proposed to act as a nitrate sensor. However, the sensing mechanism is unknown. Herein we show that NRT1.1 not only transports nitrate but also facilitates uptake of the phytohormone auxin. Moreover, nitrate inhibits NRT1.1-dependent auxin uptake, suggesting that transduction of nitrate signal by NRT1.1 is associated with a modification of auxin transport. Among other effects, auxin stimulates lateral root development. Mutation of NRT1.1 enhances both auxin accumulation in lateral roots and growth of these roots at low, but not high, nitrate concentration. Thus, we propose that NRT1.1 represses lateral root growth at low nitrate availability by promoting basipetal auxin transport out of these roots. This defines a mechanism connecting nutrient and hormone signaling during organ development. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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              Crop Yield Gaps: Their Importance, Magnitudes, and Causes

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Front Plant Sci
                Front Plant Sci
                Front. Plant Sci.
                Frontiers in Plant Science
                Frontiers Media S.A.
                1664-462X
                31 August 2016
                2016
                : 7
                : 1335
                Affiliations
                [1] 1Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, Plant Cell Biology, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands
                [2] 2Genomics Research in Ecology and Evolution in Nature – Plant Physiology, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen Groningen, Netherlands
                Author notes

                Edited by: Janin Riedelsberger, University of Talca, Chile

                Reviewed by: Rubén Rellán-Álvarez, CINVESTAV, Mexico; Vasileios Fotopoulos, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus

                *Correspondence: Christa Testerink, c.s.testerink@ 123456uva.nl

                This article was submitted to Plant Physiology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Plant Science

                Article
                10.3389/fpls.2016.01335
                5005332
                27630659
                c26b427d-f062-4df3-ad62-de6dca08b548
                Copyright © 2016 Koevoets, Venema, Elzenga and Testerink.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

                History
                : 20 June 2016
                : 18 August 2016
                Page count
                Figures: 4, Tables: 0, Equations: 0, References: 228, Pages: 19, Words: 0
                Funding
                Funded by: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek 10.13039/501100003246
                Award ID: ALW Graduate Program grant 831.15.004
                Categories
                Plant Science
                Review

                Plant science & Botany
                abiotic stress tolerance,root system architecture (rsa),salinity,drought,nutrient limitation,flooding,temperature stress tolerance,crop breeding

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