Identifying a new “nitrate master”: ZmEREB97 regulates nitrate uptake in maize

Nitrogen (N) is an essential nutrient for plants, but poses serious challenges in its use for agriculture.In high N-requiring crops, e.g., maize (Zea mays L.), N-limitation lowers grain yields (Swarbreck et al., 2019).Unfortunately, applying excess N fertilizer cannot always be the solution because it is a source of pollution in the form of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide and by excess N leaching into soil and water (Schulte-Uebbing et al., 2022).Cultivated globally for food, biofuel sources, and feedstock, maize accounts for one of the most important crops today.However, like most cereal crops, maize takes up only 30-60% of the N fertilizer provided (Zhang et al., 2015).Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand maize N-responses in order to improve its N use efficiency (NUE).In this issue of Plant Physiology, Wu et al. ( 2024) investigated the N responses in two maize lines, and identified a transcription factor (TF) involved in the regulation of nitrate uptake.First, the authors looked at gene expression in response to nitrogen recovery after depletion.By correlating gene co-expression network data with nitrate supplied time points, they successfully identified four consensus N-related modules conserved in two representative maize lines, B73 and Mo17.