Phosphate Transporters - On The Road to Better Pi Acquisition

Phosphorus is an essential element for the biosphere and is also a finite resource. An improved efficiency of phosphate uptake by crops will reduce the pressure on the limited phosphate fertilizer resources and on the aquatic environment.

This inter-institutional project aims to carry out functional studies of two phosphate uptake pathways in plants: Either direct uptake by root epidermal cells and root hairs or uptake via mycorrhizal fungi, which transfer the phosphate to the plant at specialized interfaces in root cortical cells. Phosphate transport proteins embedded in the plant cell membranes are in both cases mediating the uptake. Silencing of the genes encoding the transporters is used to determine the relative importance of the two phosphate uptake pathways. The individual phosphate transporters will be down-regulated by means of virus induced gene silencing and the relative importance of the two pathways will be determined at different scenarios of phosphate availability. The ultimate aim of the project is to evaluate prospects for improving the P uptake efficiency by changing the activity of the different types of phosphate uptake proteins.

Pea plants cv Bilbo grown at three soil P levels

Participants:
The project involves Risø DTU (Iver Jakobsen, Mette Grønlund), Aarhus University (Elisabeth Johansen, Merete Albrechtsen), Copenhagen University (Tom Hamborg Nielsen).

Role:
Risø DTU is leading and coordinating the project.

Resources:
The project is funded by a The Danish Research Council for Production and Technology Sciences

Duration:
The project grant covers 2007-2010.

Employees involved:
Iver Jakobsen (grant holder and coordinator), Mette Grønlund (post doc), Anne Olsen (technician)

Page updated by 11.10.2010

Iver Jakobsen
Professor
Biosystems (BIO)
Dir tel+45 46774154