From Nitrate Sensing to Growth: New Players in Nitrate Signaling

Leaf development is tightly linked to photosynthetic efficiency, biomass production, and the plant’s carbon–nitrogen balance. Nitrate is the primary and most effective nitrogen source for promoting leaf growth. How plants sense nitrate and convert this signal into enhanced growth remains incompletely understood. Our recent work identifies a previously unrecognized Nitrate-NLP7-CPK-TOR pathway that functions independently of the classical CPK-NLP7 transcriptional module. This novel link of NLP7-CPK-TOR complex drives leaf cell growth and translation through an NLP7 transcription factor-independent mechanism and TOR regulates protein synthesis via a unique N-motif enriched in nitrate-induced mRNAs, revealing a new layer of translational control in nitrate signaling.

Speaker: Dr. Kun-Hsiang Liu (Professor, State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology for Arid Areas, College of Life Sciences, and Institute of Future Agriculture, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling, China)

Host: Dr. Choun-Sea Lin

Time:2026/10/20 11:00 AM

Location:Auditorium A134, Agricultural Technology Building