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[Michaelangelica]

Protein That Makes Phosphate Chains In Yeast Revealed; Implications On Crops, Human Diseases

ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2009) — It can be found in all life forms, and serves a multitude of purposes, from energy storage to stress response to bone calcification.
This molecular jack-of-all trades is polyphosphate, a long chain of phosphate molecules.
Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, are now the first to uncover how this chain is assembled in eukaryotes (organisms whose cells have a nucleus).
. . .
Since polyphosphate is a ubiquitous, multi-tasking molecule with many different functions, discovering how it is produced could have implications for many different fields.
Although Vtc4p is not present in plants, the discovery could have implications for agriculture, for instance in the production of fertilizers and high-yield crops.

Polyphosphate is important for plant growth, and the scientists suspect Vtc4p could play an important role in making it available to plants that have fungi living in their roots.
Because the VTC can move from the membrane of the vacuole to that of the cell, it could assemble phosphate chains and transfer them to outside the fungus cell, where they would be available to the plant.

Protein That Makes Phosphate Chains In Yeast Revealed; Implications On Crops, Human Diseases

Under certain conditions, such as nutrient limitation, during stationary phase or osmotic stress some microorganisms have been shown to accumulate relatively large amounts of polyP (Tzeng & Kornberg, 1998).
In Acinetobacter johnsonii polyP may account for up to 30% of the dry biomass (Deinema et al., 1985).
Such levels of polyP are well in excess of the normal metabolic requirements for phosphate and indicate an important role of polyP in response to changes in nutritional status or environmental conditions (Kornberg et al., 1999).

Phosphate transport systems in prokaryotes

Polyphosphate in Microorganisms

Soil Nitrogen Test Measures Microbial Nitrogen

ScienceDaily (May 15, 2009) — Contrary to the prevailing view, cereal crops derive the majority of their nitrogen from the soil, not fertilizer. Soils differ considerably in microbial activities that determine nitrogen-supplying power, and these differences must be taken into account if nitrogen fertilizers are to be used efficiently.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0511122416.htm