Plant Roots and Mineral Nutrition: An
Overview of Molecular Basis of Uptake
and Regulation, and Strategies to Improve
Nutrient Use Efficiency (NUE)
5
Ekta Bhardwaj, Richa Shukla, and Sandip Das
Abstract
Health, productivity, and reproductive success of plants as primary producer are
dependent on soil mineral nutrients, among many other biotic and abiotic factors.
Mineral nutrients have been categorized into major and minor nutrients. Both
deficiency and excess of nutrient availability cause deficiency stress and nutrient
toxicity, respectively; “sufficiency range” being the amount needed for optimal
growth and productivity. Plants deploy a variety of developmental and adaptive
mechanisms, root architecture being one, to maximize its chances of acquiring
mineral nutrition in the sufficiency range. Past approaches to maximize crop yield
and productivity relied on abundant application of mineral nutrition as chemical
fertilizers and formed the basis of green revolution. The degradation of environment became an unintended collateral damage. The present strategy, therefore, is
to unravel the molecular basis of nutrient uptake by plant roots, mobilization,
assimilation within the plant, and the source–sink relationship in order to improve
nutrient uptake efficiency, and nutrient utilization efficiency (NUE). Given the
vastness of the subject involving developmental and adaptive traits, complicated
and interconnected nature of the various factors that regulate mineral nutrition,
the present endeavor is limited to providing an overview of key transporters that
are involved in uptake of the sixteen soil-derived mineral nutrients. The roles of
transcriptional regulators such as microRNAs are just beginning to be unraveled.
Together with transporters, small RNAs and transcription factors hold the key to
future crop breeding and improvement programs through improved root system
architecture and nutrient uptake, mobilization, and assimilation.
E. Bhardwaj · R. Shukla · S. Das (*)
Department of Botany, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
e-mail: sdas@botany.du.ac.in
# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte
Ltd. 2020
B. Giri, M. P. Sharma (eds.), Plant Stress Biology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9380-2_5
131
Overview of Molecular Basis of Uptake
and Regulation, and Strategies to Improve
Nutrient Use Efficiency (NUE)
5
Ekta Bhardwaj, Richa Shukla, and Sandip Das
Abstract
Health, productivity, and reproductive success of plants as primary producer are
dependent on soil mineral nutrients, among many other biotic and abiotic factors.
Mineral nutrients have been categorized into major and minor nutrients. Both
deficiency and excess of nutrient availability cause deficiency stress and nutrient
toxicity, respectively; “sufficiency range” being the amount needed for optimal
growth and productivity. Plants deploy a variety of developmental and adaptive
mechanisms, root architecture being one, to maximize its chances of acquiring
mineral nutrition in the sufficiency range. Past approaches to maximize crop yield
and productivity relied on abundant application of mineral nutrition as chemical
fertilizers and formed the basis of green revolution. The degradation of environment became an unintended collateral damage. The present strategy, therefore, is
to unravel the molecular basis of nutrient uptake by plant roots, mobilization,
assimilation within the plant, and the source–sink relationship in order to improve
nutrient uptake efficiency, and nutrient utilization efficiency (NUE). Given the
vastness of the subject involving developmental and adaptive traits, complicated
and interconnected nature of the various factors that regulate mineral nutrition,
the present endeavor is limited to providing an overview of key transporters that
are involved in uptake of the sixteen soil-derived mineral nutrients. The roles of
transcriptional regulators such as microRNAs are just beginning to be unraveled.
Together with transporters, small RNAs and transcription factors hold the key to
future crop breeding and improvement programs through improved root system
architecture and nutrient uptake, mobilization, and assimilation.
E. Bhardwaj · R. Shukla · S. Das (*)
Department of Botany, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
e-mail: sdas@botany.du.ac.in
# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte
Ltd. 2020
B. Giri, M. P. Sharma (eds.), Plant Stress Biology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9380-2_5
131