Abstract
The well-known paradigm that plants must rely on soil fauna for the breakdown of organic matter has been challenged by many scientists now. We took a closer look on what happened with tobacco metabolism if grown in vitro in sterile conditions with casein as a sole nitrogen (N) source.
Taken together, our findings suggest that tobacco plants accumulate mainly branched-chain and basic amino acids from casein, secrete proteases into the medium and break the peptides in the apoplast.