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. 2021 May 8;2(3):125-136.
doi: 10.1002/pei3.10046. eCollection 2021 Jun.

Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration triggers redistribution of nitrogen to promote tillering in rice

Juan Zhou  1 , Yingbo Gao  1   2 , Junpeng Wang  1 , Chang Liu  1 , Zi Wang  1 , Minjia Lv  1 , Xiaoxiang Zhang  1   3 , Yong Zhou  1 , Guichun Dong  1 , Yulong Wang  1 , Jianye Huang  1 , Dafeng Hui  4 , Zefeng Yang  1   2 , Youli Yao  1   2
Affiliations

Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration triggers redistribution of nitrogen to promote tillering in rice

Juan Zhou et al. Plant Environ Interact. .

Abstract

Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration (eCO2) often reduces nitrogen (N) content in rice plants and stimulates tillering. However, there is a general consensus that reduced N would constrain rice tillering. To resolve this contradiction, we investigated N distribution and transcriptomic changes in different rice plant organs after subjecting them to eCO2 and different N application rates. Our results showed that eCO2 significantly promoted rice tillers (by 0.6, 1.1, 1.7, and 2.1 tillers/plant at 0, 75, 150, and 225 kg N ha-1 N application rates, respectively) and more tillers were produced under higher N application rates, confirming that N availability constrained tillering in the early stages of growth. Although N content declined in the leaves (-11.0 to -20.7 mg g-1) and sheaths (-9.8 to -28.8 mg g-1) of rice plants exposed to eCO2, the N content of newly emerged tillers on plants exposed to eCO2 equaled or exceeded the N content of tillers produced under ambient CO2 conditions. Apparently, the redistribution of N within the plant per se was a critical adaptation strategy to the eCO2 condition. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that eCO2 induced less extensive alteration of gene expression than did N application. Most importantly, the expression levels of multiple N-related transporters and receptors such as nitrate transporter NRT2.3a/b and NRT1.1a/b were differentially regulated in leaf and shoot apical meristem, suggesting that multiple genes were involved in sensing the N signal and transporting N metabolites to adapt to eCO2. The redistribution of N in different organs could be a universal adaptation strategy of terrestrial plants to eCO2.

Keywords: atmospheric CO2; distribution; gene expression; nitrogen; rice; tiller.

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Conflict of interest statement

5All authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Tiller number at leaf‐age 4 and 6, tiller occurrence percentage, and biomass accumulation in response to N application rate and CO2 concentration. Amb and eCO2 stand for ambient and elevated CO2 treatment condition, respectively; N0, N5, N10, and N15 stand for N application rate 0, 75, 150, and 225 kg N ha−1, respectively; tiller number was the average of 192 plants (a); tiller occurrence percentage was investigated at leaf‐age 4 (b); biomass dry weight was sampled at leaf‐age 6, error bars are for the whole plant (c); error bars are standard deviations of four replicates; bars with different letters mean they are significantly different at p ≤ 0.05 by least significant differences comparison
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
The responses of N content in leaf, sheath, and newly emerged tillers to N application rate and CO2 conditions (a, b, and c), N uptake (d), and their relative change under eCO2 to ambient CO2 condition (e). Treatment information is the same as in Figure 1; N content was from tissues harvested at leaf‐age 6; error bars are standard deviations; bars with different letters mean they are significantly different at p ≤ 0.05 by least significant differences comparison
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Carbohydrates change in response to N application rate and CO2 treatment. Treatment information is the same as in Figure 1; tissues were harvested at leaf‐age 6; L1‐L5 represent leaf positions 1–5 of the main stem (counted from bottom up), respectively; SU and SD represent up and down part of the sheath, respectively; tiller were newly emerged tillers at leaf‐age 6; significant differences were detected in every corresponding counterpart between ambient and eCO2 treatments; error bars are standard deviations; bars with different letters mean they are significantly different at p ≤ 0.05 by least significant differences comparison, small and capital letters are for starch and soluble sugar contents respectively
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Histogram of the number of differentially expressed genes (DEG) and Venn diagrams of comparisons of tissue type, CO2, and N application effects. In the labels for each oval, the CO2 treatment levels, which come first, are A (ambient) or C (eCO2), the nitrogen treatment levels, in the second position, are 0 (N0) or 10 (N10), and, in the last position, L3 (leaf number 3) or M (apical meristem) represent samples from different tissue types
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
The gene expression (FPKM) in leaf and SAM in response to N application and CO2 condition. L for leaf, M for shoot apical meristem; Ambient and eCO2 stand for ambient and enriched CO2 treatments, respectively; error bars are standard deviations; bars with different letters mean they are significantly different at p ≤ 0.05 by least significant differences comparison
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