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REVIEW article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Development and EvoDevo
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1527547
This article is part of the Research Topic Unlocking Crop Potential: Root characterization through phenomics and genomics View all articles
From Genes to Traits: Maximizing Phosphorus Utilization Efficiency in Crop Plants
Provisionally accepted- Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, China
Phosphorus (P) is a critical macronutrient for plant growth, but its limited availability requires efficient utilization strategies. The excessive use of P fertilizers leads to low phosphorus utilization efficiency (PUE), causing severe environmental impacts and speeding up the exhaustion of P mineral reserves. Plants respond to inorganic phosphate (Pi) deficiency through complex signaling pathways that trigger changes in gene expression, root architecture, and metabolic pathways to enhance P acquisition and utilization efficiency. By exploring the interplay between genetic regulators and microorganisms, cultivars with superior PUE traits can be developed, which will ensure agricultural resilience and productivity in the face of depleting global P reserves. We highlight the synergistic interaction between genetic regulators and microorganisms to boost PUE as well as recent advancements in unraveling molecular mechanisms governing P homeostasis in plants, emphasizing the urgency to improve plant traits for improved P utilization.
Keywords: Phosphorus use-efficiency, P signaling and homeostasis, Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal Symbiosis, Phosphate Signaling Pathways, phosphate transporter
Received: 13 Nov 2024; Accepted: 18 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zulfiqar, Gu, Liu and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yaowei Zhang, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, China
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