Comparison of root transcriptomes in Arabidopsis thaliana plants supplied with different forms of inorganic nitrogen

Plants aquire nitrogen from the soil, most commonly in the form of either nitrate or ammonium. Unlike ammonium, nitrate must be reduced (with NADH and ferredoxin as electron donors) prior to assimilation. Thus, nitrate nutrition imposes a substantially greater energetic cost than ammonium nutrition. Our goal was to compare the transcriptomes of nitrate-supplied and ammonium-supplied plants, with a particular interest in characterizing the differences in redox metabolism elicited by different forms of inorganic nitrogen.

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Patterson K, Cakmak T, Cooper A, Lager I, Rasmusson AG, Escobar MA