Recent advances in understanding plant response to sulfur-deficiency stress

Sulfur is an essential macronutrient for all living organisms. Plants are able to assimilate inorganic sulfur and incorporate it into organic compounds, while animals rely entirely on organic sources of sulfur. In the last decades sulfate availability in soils has become the major limiting factor for plant production in many countries due to significant reduction of anthropogenic sulfur emission forced by introducing stringent environmental legislation. The sulfur flux after transferring plants from optimal conditions to sulfur deficiency is regulated on multiple levels including transcription, translation and activity of enzymes needed for sulfate assimilation and synthesis of sulfur-containing metabolites. Most of these regulatory steps are not yet fully characterized. Plant responses to sulfur limitation are complex and can be divided into phases depending on the degree of sulfur shortage. The initial responses are limited to adaptations within sulfur metabolic pathway, while multiple metabolic pathways and developmental process are affected when sulfur shortage becomes more severe. The major aim of this work is a comprehensive review of recent progress in understanding the regulation of plant adaptations to sulfur deficit.