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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nitrogen is a major limiting resource to plant growth during agricultural production. Contemporary efforts to address this nitrogen shortage have turned to biological nitrogen fixation as a biotechnological solution. Legumes have the ability to establish a mutualistic association with soil bacteria known as rhizobia, which form root nodules, inside of which atmospheric dinitrogen is reduced into assimilable forms and supplied to host plants. A high level of species specificity exists in rhizobia–legume interactions, which are initiated by a signal exchange between the two partners. The infection process and the development of root nodules require a set of highly coordinated events at the root epidermal and cortical cells. However, non-legumes (with few exceptions) lack the ability to associate with diazotrophs to meet their nitrogen demands. While the most efficient processes for biological nitrogen fixation occur in symbioses between nitrogen-fixing rhizobial bacteria and plants in the Leguminosae family, less efficient yet simpler processes have arisen in plant evolution that may serve as tractable candidates to contemporary bioengineering. These simpler symbioses have the potential to be developed as new model systems using recent advancements in the fields of ‘omics’. Over the past two decades, elegant genetic, genomic and biochemical studies have been conducted on legume nodulation to decipher the intricacies of this unique plant-microbe association.

This Special Issue intends to summarize the recent progress in the elucidation of legume-rhizobia symbiotic signaling, rhizobial infection, nodule organogenesis, biological nitrogen fixation, nitrogen assimilation and nodule senescence. Submission of manuscripts on studies that utilize biochemical, genetic, pharmacological, genomic approaches to further our knowledge in the area of legume-rhizobia symbiosis and reviews that discuss the scope of transferring the legume-rhizobia symbiotic signaling to non-legumes is strongly encouraged. All types of articles, original research, opinions and reviews that provide new insights into legume-rhizobia symbiosis are welcome. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Regulation of novel and key genetic players in early symbiotic signaling
Infection, nodule development and nodule senescence
Environmental and hormonal regulation of nodule development
Genome-wide analyses (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, phosphoproteomics, or metabolomics) to identify new regulators of legume-rhizobia symbiosis
Insights on the evolution of legume-rhizobia symbiosis

Dr. Muthu Venkateshwaran
Dr. Oswaldo Valdés-Lopez
Dr. Dhileepkumar Jayaraman
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

Legume nodulation
Root nodule symbiosis
Symbiotic signaling
Calcium signaling
Rhizobial infection
Nodule organogenesis
Nitrogen fixation
Nodule senescence
Legume transcriptome
Legume Proteome
Legume phosphoproteome
Comparative genomics
Evolution of nodulation

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 1792 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) Basic Leucine Zipper (bZIP) Transcription Factor Family: Response to Salinity Stress in Fertilized and Symbiotic N2-Fixing Plants

by Litzy Ayra, Mario Ramírez, Luis P. Íñiguez, Rosa Rodés, Eduardo Ortega and Georgina Hernández

Agriculture 2018, 8(10), 160; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture8100160 - 11 Oct 2018

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3548

Abstract

The basic leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factor family regulates plant developmental processes and response to stresses. The common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), an important crop legume, possesses a whole set of 78 bZIP (PvbZIP) genes, the majority of these (59%) are most highly expressed in roots and nodules, root-derived new organs formed in the rhizobia N₂-fixing symbiosis. Crop production is highly affected by salinity in Cuba and other countries. In this work we characterized the adverse effect of salinity to common bean plants of the Cuban CC-25-9-N cultivar grown in fertilized (full N-content) or symbiotic N-fixation (rhizobia inoculated) conditions. We assessed if PvbZIP TF participate in CC-25-9-N common bean response to salinity. Quantitative reverse-transcriptase-PCR (qRT-PCR) expression analysis showed that 26 out of 46 root/nodule-enhanced PvbZIP, that responded to salt stress in roots and/or nodules from fertilized and N₂-fixing CC-25-9-N plants. From public common bean transcriptomic data, we identified 554 genes with an expression pattern similar to that of salt-responsive PvbZIP genes, and propose that the co-expressed genes are likely to be involved in the stress response. Our data provide a foundation for evaluating the individual roles of salt-responsive genes and to explore the PvbZIP-mediated improvement of salt tolerance in common bean. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Legume-rhizobia Symbiosis: Current Knowledge and Future Prospects)

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Review

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9 pages, 1191 KiB

Open AccessReview

Phylogeny and Expression of NADPH Oxidases during Symbiotic Nodule Formation

by Jesús Montiel, Citlali Fonseca-García and Carmen Quinto

Agriculture 2018, 8(11), 179; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture8110179 - 16 Nov 2018

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4171

Abstract

The mutualistic interaction between gram-negative soil bacteria and the roots of legumes leads to the establishment of nodules, where atmospheric nitrogen is fixed. Nodulation is a multistep process with numerous essential players. Among these are reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are mainly generated by Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide Phosphate (NADPH) oxidases. In plants, these enzymes are known as respiratory burst oxidase homologs (RBOHs). In legumes, these proteins are encoded by a multigene family with members that are differentially expressed in various tissues and organs at distinct developmental stages. RBOHs have critical roles at several stages of nodulation: in the early signaling pathway triggered by nodulation factors in the root hairs, during both the progression of infection threads and nodule ontogeny, and in nitrogen fixation and senescence. Data from the literature along with the analysis conducted here imply that legumes use different RBOHs for different stages of nodulation; these RBOHs belong to the same phylogenetic subgroup, even though they are not strictly orthologous. Accordingly, the regulation of activity of a given RBOH during the nodulation process probably varies among legumes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Legume-rhizobia Symbiosis: Current Knowledge and Future Prospects)

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