Soybean Mutants Lacking Constitutive Nitrate Reductase Activity

Nitrogen assimilation in three nitrate reductase (NR) mutants of soybean (Glycine max L. Merr. cv Williams) was studied in the growth chamber and in the field. These mutants, LNR-2, LNR-3, and LNR-4, lack the non-NO(3) (-)-inducible or constitutive fraction of leaf NR activity found in wild-type plants, but this had no effect on the concentration of nitrogen accumulated when grown on NO(3) (-) in the growth chamber. Dry weight accumulation of two of the mutants (LNR-3 and LNR-4) was decreased relative to LNR-2 and wild type. In the field, LNR-2 had dry weights and nitrogen concentrations similar to the wild type at 34 and 61 days after planting, and at maturity. Acetylene reduction activities were also similar at 61 days.Urea-grown LNR-2 seedlings lack both inducible and constitutive NR activity, and were resistant to four days of treatment with 0.5 mm ClO(3) (-). Urea-grown wild-type seedlings, having only constitutive NR activity, developed ClO(3) (-) toxicity symptoms and suffered decreases in unifoliolate leaf NR activity and chlorophyll concentration. This suggests that (a) the reduction of ClO(3) (-) to ClO(2) (-) by NR is the major cause of ClO(3) (-) toxicity in soybeans and (b) the constitutive NR is active in situ.Segregation of the F(2) of reciprocal crosses between the wild type and the mutants indicated that absence of constitutive NR activity was controlled by a single recessive nuclear gene. Evolution of NO((x)) gas was also absent in these mutants, and this was found to be inherited jointly with constitutive NR activity: in 346 segregants, no recombinants were found. Allelism tests between LNR-2 and LNR-3, and LNR-2 and LNR-4, indicated that the constitutive NR mutation was at the same locus in each mutant.