Xingzhu Feng

Hainan Institute of Biotechnology, Haikou, 570206, Hainan, China
Author    Correspondence author
Triticeae Genomics and Genetics, 2025, Vol. 16, No. 6   
Received: 30 Oct., 2025    Accepted: 16 Dec., 2025    Published: 31 Dec., 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Improving the nitrogen fertilizer utilization efficiency (NUE) of wheat is of great significance for achieving high-yield and low-pollution agriculture. Traditional breeding and fertilization strategies are difficult to achieve precise regulation, while the transgenic expression of key nitrogen metabolism genes driven by root-specific promoters provides a new idea for enhancing the NUE of wheat. This study systematically screened and validated a batch of root-specific promoters (such as OsRCc3 and ZmRCP1), constructed expression vectors of them and candidate highly efficient nitrogen metabolism genes (such as NRTs, GS, etc.), and evaluated the application potential of key promote-gene combinations under different ecological conditions through field experiments. The feasibility of this strategy in ecological security, environmental friendliness and sustainable agriculture was also explored, emphasizing the value of root-specific regulation in precision breeding. The research results show that under low-nitrogen conditions, these transgenic plants exhibit stronger root structures, higher nitrogen absorption capacity, as well as superior nitrogen fertilizer utilization efficiency and yield performance. This research provides theoretical support and technical foundation for achieving the parallel application of reduced nitrogen fertilizer and high yield, and is expected to promote the targeted utilization of rhizosphere functional genes and the development of transgenic nitrogen efficiency breeding.

Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE); Root-specific promoter; Genetically modified wheat; Key genes for nitrogen metabolism; Precision breeding