Purchase of Equipment for Integrated Research on Plant Responses to Environmental Stress

本项目寻求资金购买仪器，用于“植物对环境胁迫的反应”领域的研究。申请的资金不仅将为我们的“植物胁迫”研究项目提供现代化的仪器设备，还将加强我们培养研究生和本科生的能力，使他们掌握最先进的植物胁迫生理学技术。在本建议范围内进行的研究的重点有些广泛，因为它将包括几个不同的研究项目。然而，本项目将加强的所有研究项目都属于植物生理学和代谢作为对环境胁迫的反应的一般类别。其中一个项目将使用所要求的仪器，重点是开发培育抗旱高粱基因型的生理选择标准。这个与墨西哥的持续国际研究项目得到了联邦和州的支持，已经发展成为一个富有成效的合作，现在有来自迈阿密大学和墨西哥东北部塔毛利帕斯州自治大学的几名研究人员和学生参与。在第二个研究项目中，我们将使用所要求的仪器，研究表皮类黄酮作为W-B反应分子的作用和W-B保护机制。我们已经合成了（世界上只有两个实验室这样做），一种特定的植物酚类抑制剂，能够完全抑制类黄酮的合成。该抑制剂独特地使我们能够验证表皮类黄酮是植物中重要的W-B筛选器的假设。

ABSTRACT This project seeks funds to purchase instrumentation that will be used to conduct research specifically in the area of "plant responses to environmental stress". The funds requested will not only provide our "plant stress" research program with modern instrumentation, but will also strengthen our capabilities for training graduate and undergraduate students in the most contemporary techniques in plant stress physiology. The focus of the research to be conducted within the scope of this proposal is somewhat broad in the sense that it will encompass several different research projects. However, all of the research projects that will be enhanced by this project fall into the general category of plant physiology and metabolism as a response to environmental stress. One of the projects that will use the requested instrumentation centers on the development of physiological selection criteria for breeding drought resistant genotypes of grain sorghum. This continuing international research program with Mexico which has received federal and state support, has developed into a fruitful collaboration which is now involving several researchers and students from both Miami University and the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas in northeastern Mexico. In a second research program that will use the requested instrumentation, we are studying the role of epidermal flavonoids as W-B response molecules and W-B protection mechanisms in plants. We have synthesized (only one of two labs in the world to do this), a specific inhibitor of plant phenolics that is capable of completely inhibiting the synthesis of flavonoids. This inhibitor has uniquely enabled us to test the hypothesis that epidermal flavonoids are important W-B screens in plants.