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In Arabidopsis thaliana , root high-affinity nitrate (NO3–) uptake depends mainly on NRT2.1, 2.4, and 2.5, which are repressed by high NO3– supply at the transcript level. For NRT2.1 , this regulation is due to the action of (i) feedback down-regulation by N metabolites and (ii) repression by NO3– itself mediated by the transceptor NRT1.1(NPF6.3). However, for NRT2.4 and NRT2.5 , the signalling pathway(s) remain unknown as do the molecular elements involved. Here we show that unlike NRT2.1 , NRT2.4 and NRT2.5 are not induced in an NO3– reductase mutant but are up-regulated following replacement of NO3– by ammonium (NH4+) as the N source. Moreover, increasing the NO3– concentration in a mixed nutrient solution with constant NH4+ concentration results in a gradual repression of NRT2.4 and NRT2.5 , which is suppressed in an nrt1.1 mutant. This indicates that NRT2.4 and NRT2.5 are subjected to repression by NRT1.1-mediated NO3– sensing, and not to feedback repression by reduced N metabolites. We further show that key regulators of NRT2 transporters, such as HHO1, HRS1, PP2C, LBD39, BT1, and BT2, are also regulated by NRT1.1-mediated NO3– sensing, and that several of them are involved in NO3– repression of NRT2.1 , NRT2.4 , and NRT2.5. Finally, we provide evidence that it is the phosphorylated form of NRT1.1 at the T101 residue, which is most active in triggering the NRT1.1-mediated NO3– regulation of all these genes. Altogether, these data led us to propose a regulatory model for high-affinity NO3– uptake in Arabidopsis, highlighting several NO3– transduction cascades downstream of the phosphorylated form of the NRT1.1 transceptor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycomb-group (PcG) proteins are major chromatin complexes that regulate gene expression, mainly described as repressors keeping genes in a transcriptionally silent state during development. Recent studies have nonetheless suggested that PcG proteins might have additional functions, including targeting active genes or acting independently of gene expression regulation. However, the reasons for the implication of PcG proteins and their associated chromatin marks on active genes are still largely unknown. Here, we report that combining mutations for CURLY LEAF (CLF) and LIKE HETEROCHROMATIN PROTEIN1 (LHP1), two Arabidopsis PcG proteins, results in deregulation of expression of active genes that are targeted by PcG proteins or enriched in associated chromatin marks. We show that this deregulation is associated with accumulation of small RNAs corresponding to massive degradation of active gene transcripts. We demonstrate that transcriptionally active genes and especially those targeted by PcG proteins are prone to RNA degradation, even though deregulation of RNA degradation following the loss of function of PcG proteins is not likely to be mediated by a PcG protein-mediated chromatin environment. Therefore, we conclude that PcG protein function is essential to maintain an accurate level of RNA degradation to ensure accurate gene expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale identification of genes expressed in roots of the model plant Arabidopsis was performed by serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE), on a total of 144,083 sequenced tags, representing at least 15,964 different mRNAs. For tag to gene assignment, we developed a computational approach based on 26,620 genes annotated from the complete sequence of the genome. The procedure selected warrants the identification of the genes corresponding to the majority of the tags found experimentally, with a high level of reliability, and provides a reference database for SAGE studies in Arabidopsis. This new resource allowed us to characterize the expression of more than 3,000 genes, for which there is no expressed sequence tag (EST) or cDNA in the databases. Moreover, 85% of the tags were specific for one gene. To illustrate this advantage of SAGE for functional genomics, we show that our data allow an unambiguous analysis of most of the individual genes belonging to 12 different ion transporter multigene families. These results indicate that, compared with EST-based tag to gene assignment, the use of the annotated genome sequence greatly improves gene identification in SAGE studies. However, more than 6,000 different tags remained with no gene match, suggesting that a significant proportion of transcripts present in the roots originate from yet unknown or wrongly annotated genes. The root transcriptome characterized in this study markedly differs from those obtained in other organs, and provides a unique resource for investigating the functional specificities of the root system. As an example of the use of SAGE for transcript profiling in Arabidopsis, we report here the identification of 270 genes differentially expressed between roots of plants grown either with NO[sub 3, sup -] or NH[sub 4]NO[sub 3] as N source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]