Amino acid transporter mutants of Arabidopsis provides evidence that a non-mycorrhizal plant acquires organic nitrogen from agricultural soil.

Although organic nitrogen (N) compounds are ubiquitous in soil solutions, their potential role in plant N nutrition has been questioned. We performed a range of experiments on Arabidopsis thaliana genetically modified to enhance or reduce root uptake of amino acids. Plants lacking expression of the Lysine Histidine Transporter 1 (LHT1) displayed significantly lower contents of 13 C and 15 N label and of U-13 C5 ,15 N2 L-glutamine, as determined by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry when growing in pots and supplied with dually labelled L-glutamine compared to wild type plants and LHT1-overexpressing plants. Slopes of regressions between accumulation of 13 C-labelled carbon and 15 N-labelled N were higher for LHT1-overexpressing plants than wild type plants, while plants lacking expression of LHT1 did not display a significant regression between the two isotopes. Uptake of labelled organic N from soil tallied with that of labelled ammonium for wild type plants and LHT1-overexpressing plants but was significantly lower for plants lacking expression of LHT1. When grown on agricultural soil plants lacking expression of LHT1 had the lowest, and plants overexpressing LHT1 the highest C/N ratios and natural δ15 N abundance suggesting their dependence on different N pools. Our data show that LHT1 expression is crucial for plant uptake of organic N from soil.