A systems view of nitrogen nutrient and metabolite responses in Arabidopsis

Nitrogen (N) is an essential macronutrient available to plants mainly as nitrate in agricultural soils. Besides its role as a nutrient, inorganic and organic N sources play key roles as signals that control genome-wide gene expression in Arabidopsis and other plant species. Genomics approaches have provided us with thousands of genes whose expression is modulated in response to N treatments in Arabidopsis. Recently, systems approaches have been utilized to map the complex molecular network that plants utilize to integrate metabolic, cellular, and developmental processes to successfully adapt to changing N availability. The challenge now is to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying N regulation of gene networks and bridge the gap between N sensing, signaling, and downstream physiological and developmental changes. We discuss recent advances in this direction.