Cluster of Plant Developmental Biology Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Wageningen University & Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Department of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology, 6700 AB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Genes (Basel). 2021 Jul 1;12(7):1028. doi: 10.3390/genes12071028.
Root development is crucial for plant growth and therefore a key factor in plant performance and food production. is the most commonly used system to study root system architecture (RSA). Growing plants on agar-based media has always been routine practice, but this approach poorly reflects the natural situation, which fact in recent years has led to a dramatic shift toward studying RSA in soil. Here, we directly compare RSA responses to agar-based medium (plates) and potting soil (rhizotrons) for a set of redundant loss-of-function () CRISPR mutants with variable degrees of secondary root defects. We demonstrate that and plants, which produce only a handful of emerged secondary roots, can be distinguished from other genotypes based on both RSA shape and individual traits on plates and rhizotrons. However, in rhizotrons the secondary root density and the total contribution of the side root system to the RSA is increased in these two mutants, effectively rendering their phenotypes less distinct compared to WT. On the other hand, , , and mutants showed an opposite effect by having reduced secondary root density in rhizotrons. This leads us to believe that plate versus rhizotron responses are genotype dependent, and these differential responses were also observed in unrelated mutants and . Our study demonstrates that the type of growth system affects the RSA differently across genotypes, hence the optimal choice of growth conditions to analyze RSA phenotype is not predetermined.
根系发育对于植物的生长至关重要，因此是植物表现和粮食生产的关键因素。水培是研究根系结构（RSA）最常用的系统。在琼脂培养基上种植植物一直是常规做法，但这种方法与自然情况相差甚远，近年来，人们强烈倾向于在土壤中研究 RSA。在这里，我们直接比较了一组冗余功能丧失（）CRISPR 突变体在琼脂培养基（平板）和盆栽土壤（根箱）中的 RSA 反应，这些突变体具有不同程度的次生根缺陷。我们证明，和仅产生少数次生根的植物可以根据 RSA 形状和平板和根箱上的个体特征与其他基因型区分开来。然而，在根箱中，这两个突变体的次生根密度和侧根系统对 RSA 的总贡献增加，与 WT 相比，其表型的差异不那么明显。另一方面，和突变体在根箱中表现出相反的效果，次生根密度降低。这使我们相信，平板与根箱的反应取决于基因型，这种差异反应也在不相关的突变体和中观察到。我们的研究表明，生长系统的类型会影响不同基因型的 RSA，因此分析 RSA 表型的最佳生长条件选择不是预先确定的。
