Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-6-2021

Journal Title

Communications Biology

ISSN

eISSN: 2399-3642

Keywords

Agriculture, Molecular biology, Plant sciences

Disciplines

Agricultural Science | Agronomy and Crop Sciences

Abstract

Two challenges that the global wheat industry is facing are a lowering nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) and an increase in the reporting of wheat-protein related health issues. Sulphur deficiencies in soil has also been reported as a global issue. The current study used large-scale field and glasshouse experiments to investigate the sulphur fertilization impacts on sulphur deficient soil. Here we show that sulphur addition increased NUE by more than 20% through regulating glutamine synthetase. Alleviating the soil sulphur deficiency highly significantly reduced the amount of gliadin proteins indicating that soil sulphur levels may be related to the biosynthesis of proteins involved in wheat-induced human pathologies. The sulphur-dependent wheat gluten biosynthesis network was studied using transcriptome analysis and amino acid metabolomic pathway studies. The study concluded that sulphur deficiency in modern farming systems is not only having a profound negative impact on productivity but is also impacting on population health.

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02458-7