University of Hohenheim Institute of Plant Nutrition (UHOH)

http://www.uni-hohenheim.de/www330/index.php

The Institute of Plant Nutrition has 28 members of staff. The Molecular Plant Nutrition group headed by Prof. Nicolaus von Wiren characterises nutrient transport systems and nutrient metabolism, in particular of nitrogen, iron and trace metals. Research activities include isolation and characterisation of nutrient transporters from plants, determining the role of nutrient uptake and transport processes in nutrient efficiency, use of symbiotic and associative microorganisms to increase nutrient acquisition by crop plants, investigating the role of nutrients and downstream signaling events in plant development, and investigating plant mechanisms for nutrient sensing.

The group has isolated a family of ammonium and urea transporter genes from Arabidopsis thaliana and from tomato and has characterized them via heterologous expression in yeast, A. thaliana insertion mutants and AMT antisense lines in tomato. Dr. Günter Neumann has conducted research on P-mobilising root exudates, their chemical composition and interactions with rhizosphere microbial communities as well as morphological root adaptations to nutrient stresses. He has particular expertise in HPLC analysis, biochemical and physiological assays for characterizing root exudates.

This expertise combined with experience gained on studying PGPR within the MicroNfix project will be applied in RHIBAC to understand better the interactions between PGPR and wheat, and also the influence of plant genotype on the interaction. In addition, Nicolaus von Wirén was the coordinator of MicroNfix, and is the coordinator of RHIBAC.