How do soil fungi supply plants with mineral nutrients?
In nature, certain plants and fungi have evolved a complex, symbiotic relationship in which the plants provide the fungi with carbon while the fungi provide the plants with phosphate needed for cell function and growth. Understanding this relationship could result in scientists ability to develop plants that require fewer applications of phosphate fertilizers. Working with soil fungi called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and a model legume,Medicago truncatula,Maria Harrisons laboratory is unraveling the mechanisms underlying mineral transfer from fungus to plant. The fungi, which are ubiquitous in soil, live in close proximity to the plants roots. The fungal spores grow on the root surface and, in response to a signal from the plant, grow into the cells of the root. Once there, the plant forms a membrane, called the arbuscular membrane, through which the mineral exchange occurs. Harrison theorized that a particular transporter protein in the arbuscular membrane mediates the movement of p
