This book focuses on the fundamentals of plant physiology for undergraduate and graduate students. It consists of 34 chapters divided into five major units. Unit I discusses the unique mechanisms of water and ion transport, while Unit II describes the various metabolic events essential for plant development that result from plants’ ability to capture photons from sunlight, to convert inorganic forms of nutrition to organic forms and to synthesize high energy molecules, such as ATP. Light signal perception and transduction works in perfect coordination with a wide variety of plant growth regulators in regulating various plant developmental processes, and these aspects are explored in Unit III. Unit IV investigates plants’ various structural and biochemical adaptive mechanisms to enable them to survive under a wide variety of abiotic stress conditions (salt, temperature, flooding, drought), pathogen and herbivore attack (biotic interactions). Lastly, Unit V addresses the large number of secondary metabolites produced by plants that are medicinally important for mankind and their applications in biotechnology and agriculture. Each topic is supported by illustrations, tables and information boxes, and a glossary of important terms in plant physiology is provided at the end.

Plant Physiology: A Treatise, Volume VIII: Nitrogen Metabolism focuses on the physiological aspects of nitrogen metabolism in plants. This book considers the descriptive biochemistry by which nitrogen compounds and their reactions are recognized; the way the feasible reactions are assembled into metabolic pathways and cycles that give meaningful purpose and direction to the course of metabolism; and the ongoing fate of nitrogen compounds in relation to ontogeny, growth, and development. This volume is organized into four chapters and begins with an introduction to developments in basic and applied biological nitrogen fixation, focusing on the agriculturally important mechanisms by which atmospheric nitrogen is converted to plant protein. The biology and biochemistry of nitrogen-fixing associations and their practical application in agriculture are discussed, along with nitrogen metabolism in the context of various actual situations in which cells divide and grow and specific plants develop, mature, and reproduce. The next chapter deals with the metabolism and turnover of proteins, citing specific proteins (the enzymes ribulosebisphosphate carboxylase and nitrate reductase and seed protein) as the type cases to illustrate the fate of special proteins through their formation and turnover. The mechanisms and biological settings of protein degradation, as distinct from breakdown during protein turnover, are also covered in detail. This book is intended for teachers, research workers, and students with specific interest in plant physiology.

This volume covers the most significant advances of the last ten years in understanding intermediary nitrogen metabolism in plants. The eight chapters comprise aspects of nitrate and nitrogen assimilation, symbiotic nitrogen fixation, glutamine and glutamate enzymology, amino acid biosynthesis, ureides, and polyamine and sulfur metabolism. The volume emphasizes molecular and genetic advances as well as biochemistry and physiology. Intermediary Nitrogen Metabolism will be of interest to all plant biochemists and molecular geneticists who study nitrogen metabolism, enzymology, and amino acids.

V.4A - Metabolism: organic nutrition and nitrogen metabolism.

Metabolic patterns and cellular organisation; Organisation and structure; Bioenergetics; Catabolism; Anabolism; Links between metabolic pathways.