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Journal of Integrative Agriculture  2017, Vol. 16 Issue (01): 190-198    DOI: 10.1016/S2095-3119(15)61308-9
Soil & Fertilization﹒Irrigation﹒Plant Nutrition﹒ Agro-Ecology & Environment Advanced Online Publication | Current Issue | Archive | Adv Search |
Nitrogen (N) metabolism related enzyme activities, cell ultrastructure and nutrient contents as affected by N level and barley genotype
Jawad Munawar Shah, Syed Asad Hussain Bukhari, Zeng Jian-bin, Quan Xiao-yan, Essa Ali, Noor Muhammad, Zhang Guo-ping

Department of Agronomy, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, P.R.China

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Abstract  Development of the new crop cultivars with high yield under low nitrogen (N) input is a fundamental approach to enhance agricultural sustainability, which is dependent on the exploitation of the elite germplasm.  In the present study, four barley genotypes (two Tibetan wild and two cultivated), differing in N use efficiency (NUE), were characterized for their physiological and biochemical responses to different N levels.  Higher N levels significantly increased the contents of other essential nutrients (P, K, Ca, Fe, Cu and Mn), and the increase was more obvious for the N-efficient genotypes (ZD9 and XZ149).  The observation of ultrastructure showed that chloroplast structure was severely damaged under low nitrogen, and the two high N efficient genotypes were relatively less affected.  The activities of the five N metabolism related enzymes, i.e.,  nitrate reductase (NR), glutamine synthetase (GS), nitrite reductase (NiR), glutamate synthase (GOGAT) and glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) all showed the substantial increase with the increased N level in the culture medium.  However the increased extent differed among the four genotypes, with the two N efficient genotypes showing more increase in comparison with the other two genotypes with relative N inefficiency (HXRL and XZ56).  The current findings showed that a huge difference exists in low N tolerance among barley genotypes, and improvement of some physiological traits (such as enzymes) could be helpful for increasing N utilization efficiency. 
Keywords:  barley      enzyme      genotype      nitrogen      ultrastructure  
Received: 09 November 2015   Accepted: Online: 21 January 2016  
Fund: 

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31330055), the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-05) and the Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Modern Crop Production, China (JCIC-MCP).

Corresponding Authors:  ZHANG Guo-ping, Tel: +86-571-88982115, E-mail: zhanggp@zju.edu.cn    
About author:  Jawad Munawar Shah, E-mail: shah8712@yahoo.com

Cite this article: 

Jawad Munawar Shah, Syed Asad Hussain Bukhari, ZENG Jian-bin, QUAN Xiao-yan, Essa Ali, Noor Muhammad, ZHANG Guo-ping . 2017. Nitrogen (N) metabolism related enzyme activities, cell ultrastructure and nutrient contents as affected by N level and barley genotype. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 16(01): 190-198.

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