Nutrient concentration in the soil can vary by several orders of magnitudes in both time and space. Thus, plants have sensing mechanisms to tune their physiology and development in order to adapt to mineral constrains. However, these adaptations are also influenced by other factors such as light, carbon, or hormone related signaling. In particular, this signal entanglement and complexity likely slowed down the discovery of key molecular factors controlling plant Nitrogen perception. Systems biology is meant to resolve such complexity.

Thus, I will illustrate how we use systems approaches to i) infer transcriptional networks from dynamic transcriptomic data, ii) understand the dominant trends of nutrient/hormone interactions; and consequently iii) try to highlight the role of key molecular actors such as transcription factors.