Document Type

Report

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

Plants are the foundation of our food system. All our food either comes directly from plants or from animals that have been fed plants. Thus, our nutrition is directly related to the nutritional content of plants. In nature, plants obtain much of their mineral nutrients from symbioses with soil microbes, forming mycorrhizal roots with specialized fungi and nitrogen-fixing root nodules with rhizobium bacteria. One goal of sustainable agriculture is to cultivate these ancient associations to reduce reliance on commercial fertilizer. We have identified a gene, NPF1B, associated with both mycorrhization and nodulation, expressed specifically in infected cells, the sites of nutrient transfer between symbiotic partners. To learn how the same gene can function in two different symbioses, we examine alternative splicing of the NPF1B gene in both mycorrhization and nodulation.

Comments

This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hatch project VT-H02607 (Accession Number 1021202).

Harris_VTH02607_Project_Summary.pdf (76 kB)
Harris Project Summary

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