Cuticle permeability is an important parameter for the trade-off strategy between drought tolerance and CO uptake in land plants.

To protect against water loss, land plants have developed the cuticle; however, the cuticle strongly restricts CO uptake for photosynthesis. Controlling this trade-off relationship is an important strategy for plant survival, but the extent to which the changes in cuticle affects this relationship is not clear. To evaluate this, we measured CO assimilation rate and transpiration rate together in the mutant (), which exhibited marked evaporative water loss due to an increased cuticle permeability caused by a new allele of ().

Enhanced NRT1.1/NPF6.3 expression in shoots improves growth under nitrogen deficiency stress in Arabidopsis.

Identification of genes and their alleles capable of improving plant growth under low nitrogen (N) conditions is key for developing sustainable agriculture. Here, we show that a genome-wide association study using Arabidopsis thaliana accessions suggested an association between different magnitudes of N deficiency responses and diversity in NRT1.1/NPF6.

Increased Cuticle Permeability Caused by a New Allele of - Enhances CO Uptake.

Carbon dioxide (CO) is an essential substrate for photosynthesis in plants. CO is absorbed mainly through the stomata in land plants because all other aerial surfaces are covered by a waxy layer called the cuticle. The cuticle is an important barrier that protects against extreme water loss; however, this anaerobic layer limits CO uptake.

A phytochrome-B-mediated regulatory mechanism of phosphorus acquisition.

Phosphorus (P) is a key macronutrient whose availability has a profound effect on plant growth and productivity. The understanding of the mechanism underlying P availability-responsive P acquisition has expanded largely in the past decade; however, effects of other environmental factors on P acquisition and utilization remain elusive. Here, by imaging natural variation in phosphate uptake in 200 natural accessions of Arabidopsis, we identify two accessions with low phosphate uptake activity, Lm-2 and CSHL-5.

Phenotypic screening of Arabidopsis T-DNA insertion lines for cell wall mechanical properties revealed ANTHOCYANINLESS2, a cell wall-related gene.

We performed a phenotypic screening of confirmed homozygous T-DNA insertion lines in Arabidopsis for cell wall extensibility, in an attempt to identify genes involved in the regulation of cell wall mechanical properties. Seedlings of each line were cultivated and the cell wall extensibility of their hypocotyls was measured with a tensile tester. Hypocotyls of lines with known cell wall-related genes showed higher or lower extensibility than those of the wild-type at high frequency, indicating that the protocol used was effective.