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Descripción
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| The extensive use of synthetic N fertilizers in developed countries poses enormous environmental threats that must be addressed. The awareness that biological N2 fixation can be used as alternative to the synthetic N fertilizers in the implementation of modern sustainable agricultural practices is an underlying driving force for nitrogenase studies. An ambitious challenge of plant biotechnology is to increase cereal crop productivity by engineering plants to fix their own nitrogen, i.e. by functional expression of bacterial N2 fixation (nif) genes in the plant.1,2 Two identified barriers have traditionally impaired this approach: the known sensitivity of nitrogenase to O2 (the byproduct of plant photosynthesis) and the genetic/biochemical complexity of nitrogenase biosynthesis. Balanced expression of at least 9 nif gene is required to mature nitrogenase structural polypeptides into their catalytically active forms.3 Both nitrogenase components, as well as most proteins required for the assembly of their metal clusters, are very sensitive to O2. The initial hypothesis of this work is that the mitochondrial matrix could provide a low O2 environment appropriate for the assembly and the activity of nitrogenase components. Advances towards obtaining proof of concept for this hypothesis will be presented. | |
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Internacional
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Si |
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ISSN o ISBN
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000000000 |
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Entidad relacionada
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19TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NITROGEN FIXATION |
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Nacionalidad Entidad
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Sin nacionalidad |
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Lugar del congreso
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Pacific Grove (CA). EE.UU. |