Intracellular signal transduction in legume symbioses

Nitrogen (N) is an essential mineral element required in abundance for plant growth. Plants take up inorganic forms of N (mainly nitrate) in soils and assimilate them for the biosynthesis of various Ncontaining organic compounds. Nitrogen is one of the most expensive nutrients to supply and commercial nitrate fertilizers represent the major cost in crops production. Paradoxically, it has been estimated that 50-70% of the nitrogen provided to the soil is lost, giving rise to soil and water pollution as well as global warming through emissions of nitrous oxide. Lowering fertilizer input and breeding crops with better nitrogen use efficiency is one of the main goals of plant nutrition research.
Legume plants via their association with nitrogen-fixing bacteria or phosphate-delivering arbuscular mycorrhiza are natural fertilizers. Thus, Legume have enormous potential for sustainable agriculture, enhancement of primary production with reduced fertilizer use. Understanding how Legume plants do form symbioses interactions is thus essential to develop new agricultural and breeding strategies.
This project will unravel novel signal transduction mechanism leading to nitrogen-fixing bacteria and phosphate delivering arbuscular mycorrhiza symbioses. The student will use a combination of in vivo imaging analyses, genetics, molecular biology, and chemistry to study how signals perception are transduced to activate Legume symbioses.