Legume adaptation to sulfur deficiency revealed by comparing nutrient allocation and seed traits in Medicago truncatula.

Reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions and the use of sulfur-free mineral fertilizers are decreasing soil sulfur levels and threaten the adequate fertilization of most crops. To provide knowledge regarding legume adaptation to sulfur restriction, we subjected Medicago truncatula, a model legume species, to sulfur deficiency at various developmental stages, and compared the yield, nutrient allocation and seed traits. This comparative analysis revealed that sulfur deficiency at the mid-vegetative stage decreased yield and altered the allocation of nitrogen and carbon to seeds, leading to reduced levels of major oligosaccharides in mature seeds, whose germination was dramatically affected. In contrast, during the reproductive period, sulfur deficiency had little influence on yield and nutrient allocation, but the seeds germinated slowly and were characterized by low levels of a biotinylated protein, a putative indicator of germination vigor that has not been previously related to sulfur nutrition. Significantly, plants deprived of sulfur at an intermediary stage (flowering) adapted well by remobilizing nutrients from source organs to seeds, ensuring adequate quantities of carbon and nitrogen in seeds. This efficient remobilization of photosynthates may be explained by vacuolar sulfate efflux to maintain leaf metabolism throughout reproductive growth, as suggested by transcript and metabolite profiling. The seeds from these plants, deprived of sulfur at the floral transition, contained normal levels of major oligosaccharides but their germination was delayed, consistent with low levels of sucrose and the glycolytic enzymes required to restart seed metabolism during imbibition. Overall, our findings provide an integrative view of the legume response to sulfur deficiency.

Adaptation of Medicago truncatula to nitrogen limitation is modulated via local and systemic nodule developmental responses.

Adaptation of Medicago truncatula to local nitrogen (N) limitation was investigated to provide new insights into local and systemic N signaling. The split-root technique allowed a characterization of the local and systemic responses of NO(3)(-) or N(2)-fed plants to localized N limitation. (15)N and (13)C labeling were used to monitor plant nutrition. Plants expressing pMtENOD11-GUS and the sunn-2 hypernodulating mutant were used to unravel mechanisms involved in these responses. Unlike NO(3)(-)-fed plants, N(2)-fixing plants lacked the ability to compensate rapidly for a localized N limitation by up-regulating the N(2)-fixation activity of roots supplied elsewhere with N. However they displayed a long-term response via a growth stimulation of pre-existing nodules, and the generation of new nodules, likely through a decreased abortion rate of early nodulation events. Both these responses involve systemic signaling. The latter response is abolished in the sunn mutant, but the mutation does not prevent the first response. Local but also systemic regulatory mechanisms related to plant N status regulate de novo nodule development in Mt, and SUNN is required for this systemic regulation. By contrast, the stimulation of nodule growth triggered by systemic N signaling does not involve SUNN, indicating SUNN-independent signaling.

(34)S and (15)N labelling to model S and N flux in plants and determine the different components of N and S use efficiency.

In order to highlight our understanding on ecosystems functioning and resource sharing/competition, either in artificial environment or agrosystems, according to changes in the climatic conditions, it is necessary to measure accurately element fluxes within plants. Stable isotopes allow tracking safely and accurately on a short time frame the behavior of elements in plants. After a short review devoted to isotopic studies of elemental flux within plants, we explain how a direct multiple labelling study might be conducted in a plant, so as to measure over short time nitrogen and sulfur acquisition, and assimilates arising from a labelled source.