Large-Scale Public Transcriptomic Data Mining Reveals a Tight Connection between the Transport of Nitrogen and Other Transport Processes in Arabidopsis

Fei He, Abhijit A. Karve, Sergei Maslov, Benjamin A. Babst

Movement of nitrogen to the plant tissues where it is needed for growth is an important contribution to nitrogen use efficiency. However, we have very limited knowledge about the mechanisms of nitrogen transport. Loading of nitrogen into the xylem and/or phloem by transporter proteins is likely important, but there are several families of genes that encode transporters of nitrogenous molecules (collectively referred to as N transporters here), each comprised of many gene members. In this study, we leveraged publicly available microarray data of Arabidopsis to investigate the gene networks of N transporters to elucidate their possible biological roles. First, we showed that tissue-specificity of nitrogen (N) transporters was well reflected among the public microarray data. Then, we built coexpression networks of N transporters, which showed relationships between N transporters and particular aspects of plant metabolism, such as phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and carbohydrate metabolism. Furthermore, genes associated with several biological pathways were found to be tightly coexpressed with N transporters in different tissues. Our coexpression networks provide information at the systems-level that will serve as a resource for future investigation of nitrogen transport systems in plants, including candidate gene clusters that may work together in related biological roles.