Nitrate-induced gene expression in Arabidopsis mutant of NIN-LIKE PROTEIN 2

Plants modulate gene expression profile in response to nitrate through NIN-LIKE PROTEIN (NLP) transcription factors in order to promote nitrate uptake and utilization. Although there are 9 NLP proteins in Arabidopsis, NLP7 had attracted most of the attention. Here, we focused on NLP2, because the nlp2 and nlp7 knockout mutants displayed different phenotypes. To gain insight into genes whose expression was affected by the nlp2 mutation, we compared gene expression profiles in the wild-type Columiba and the nlp2 mutant that were treated with 10 mM KNO3 for 1 hour. Columbia and nlp2 that were treated with 10 mM KCl for 1 hour were used as controls. We found that nitrate induction of 6 genes was compromised only in the nlp2 mutant. The wild-type Columbia and the nlp2 mutant were grown under a nitrate-free condition and treated with 10 mM KNO3 or KCl (control) for 1 hour