Investigating the expression of nitrate transporter genes in response to nitrogen deficiency level in Arabidopsis

Nitrogen is one of the most important components of biomolecules, amino acids, nucleotides, proteins, chlorophyll, and many plant hormones, which are essential and necessary for plant growth and development. In the condition of nitrogen deficiency very different responses such as yield reduction, leaf chlorosis, plant growth and root structure formation appears in phenotypes of plants. In the last decade, to increase the amount of biomass and as a result the yield of plants, a wide use of nitrogen has attracted the attention of researchers. In this study, the expression analysis of seven nitrate transporter genes (NRT2) was investigated in Arabidopsis in response to nitrogen deficiency stress at 4 and 7 days after this stress. The expression analysis of NRT2.3 and NRT2.4 genes showed increased expression at 7 days after applying nitrogen deficiency stress. But all the genes did not show a significant increase in expression at 4 days after N stress application. NRT2.4 gene showed a significant increase in 4 and 7 days after applying nitrogen stress compared to other genes. Overall, our results showed that increased nitrate transporter gene expression in leaves contributes to nitrogen uptake for plant growth and nitrogen accumulation in response to long-term low nitrogen stress. These findings can lead to a better understanding of the mechanism of low nitrogen tolerance and therefore the increase of other cultivars with nitrogen deficiency stresses.