A transgenic approach to enhance phosphorus use efficiency in crops as part of a comprehensive strategy for sustainable agriculture

Concerns about phosphorus (P) sustainability in agriculture arise not only from the potential of P scarcity but also from the known effects of agricultural P use beyond the field, i.e., eutrophication leading to dead zones in lakes, rivers and coastal oceans due to runoffs from fertilized fields. Plants possess a large number of adaptive responses to Pi (orthophosphate) limitation that provide potential raw materials to enhance Pi scavenging abilities of crop plants. Understanding and engineering these adaptive responses to increase the efficiency of crop capture of natural and fertilizer Pi in soils is one way to optimize Pi use efficiency (PUE) and, together with other approaches, help to meet the P sustainability challenge in agriculture. Research on the molecular and physiological basis of Pi uptake is facilitating the generation of plants with enhanced Pi use efficiency by genetic engineering. Here we describe work done in this direction with emphasis on the up-regulation of plant proton-translocating pyrophosphatases (H+-PPases).

► Understanding plant adaptive responses to Pi (orthophosphate) limitation is key to judiciously engineer crops with optimized Pi use efficiency (PUE).
► As an example of the feasibility of this approach we describe work done in this direction with emphasis on the up-regulation of plant proton-translocating pyrophosphatases (H+-PPases).
► We conclude that together with other approaches plant genetic engineering is instrumental to help meet the P sustainability challenge in agriculture.