THE AMAZING B6 VITAMER IN PLANTS

Recently a B6 Vitamer has been elevated to the role of saviour of our planet. As we’re knee deep in commecial fertilizers, anything that delivers less chemicals to our soils is of benefit. The quality of our food and the health of our planet are at stake. We urgently need to know more about limiting chemical fertilizers usage at the earliest possible opportunity

Credit: © Teresa Fitzpatrick, UNIGE

The jurassic mudsoak started off as an enormous prehistoric forest that fed on zero nitrogen fertilizers. And this fantastic B6 discovery may let us return to that. A truly remarkable discovery has been made by researchers at the University of Geneva:

 A B6 Vitamer has been discovered to display the remarkable characteristic of nitrogen signalling in plant metabolism.

A vitamin is the function performed by a group of vitamers call vitamers. A vitamer is a component part of a vitamin - each one having slightly different but complimentary biological roles. When properly combined, Vitamers have some serious therapeutic power.

Vitamin B6 has in fact 4 different vitamers including: pyridoxine, pyridoxal,  pyridoxamine and pyridoxal 5 phosphate. The pyridoxal phosphate vitamer(P-5-P) in the human body is intricately involved in gene transcription. As with all vitamers, they cannot be made and must be consumed from food every day

Recently, in the journal The Plant Cell, the results od a study point to a remarkable role of a B6 vitamer – PMP(pyrodoxamine 5′-phosphate).  Studies found it acting as a signaller, informing the plant of its ammonium content. What does this all mean?

 GREENHOUSE GASES

Ammonium is a powerful nitrogeneous compond. It is a key component of the nitrogen based commercial fertilizer NPK. Its use is widespread in agriculture today. however its production is a major producer of greenhouse gasses.

This has serious coinsequences for our environment and a significant contributor to global warming greenhouse gases. The application of amonium based fertilizer causes an increase in methane emissions. And the degradation of nitrogen based fertilizers increases nitrox oxide emissions.

These are 2 of the top 3 greenhouse gases in the world today. Nitrous Oxide has 298 times the global warming potential of an equal mass of carbon dioxide(CO2). This is the No. 1 greenhouse gas.

B6 Vitamer PMP

The remarkable of the new role for the B6 Vitamer in plants may change all that.

Researchers in conjunction with Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology and the University of Düsseldorf studied a plant with a defective PDX3 enzyme – Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress) which displayed clearly impaired growth.

“PDX3-defective plants cannot transform a vitamer called PMP, therefore the latter accumulates within the cell. While we hypothesized that the observed anomalies may be due to the high levels of PMP, we had no idea of the underlying mechanism and questioned its precise contribution.” (Maite Colinas, of the Geneva team and first author of the study.)

The unexpected discovery that the observed growth anomalies of the mutants were completely invalidated in the plants suplied with ammonium. Remarkably, the high levels of PMP in the PDX3-defective plants interfere with the nitrate into ammonium conversion. This resulted in the  impaired growth from the ammonium deficiency.

The PMP Signal

Applying their discoveries to other wild type plants they have made another observation. There was a considerable accumulation of the PMP vitamer in plants supplemented with ammonium. “When the plant contains enough ammonium for its needs, further production from nitrate is prevented, thus limiting energy waste and potential toxicity that can happen if too much is made. The level of PMP probably informs the plant about its ammonium state”.(Maite Colinas.)

This B6 vitamer may be used extensively to determine the nitrogen status of plants. This information may have a game chamging effect on the modern misuse of chemical fertilizer in agriculture.

As a result, we may finally have some remarkable potential at our disposal:

•     reducing the diasterous global warming effects of commercial fertilizer production
•     reduce the destructive effects of commercial fertilizer use on the environment
•     help maintain the soils delicate eco-system

THE FUTURE OF THE B6 VITAMER

Ultimately, we may be able to return to nutrient dense food production abundant in minerals, trace minerasl & their trace elements.

“In most natural soils the predominant nitrogen source for plants is nitrate, as they usually contain little ammonium. Plants must therefore import the former and convert it to ammonium, which can then be used for the biosynthesis of nitrogenous compounds including proteins to promote plant growth”, said Teresa Fitzpatrick, professor at the Department of Botany and Plant Biology of the Faculty of Sciences of UNIGE, who led the study.

The research group are now further investigating this signalling role of the B6 vitamer further. Their emphasis is on finding other compounds involved or if it is indeed by a direct action.