Dissecting the CBL-CIPK Network in Plant Signal Transduction

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Plants cannot move and therefore they need to deal with environmental changes on-site. All plants that survive to this day have learned many ways to adapt to environmental changes, especially stressful conditions that affect their growth and development. If one understands how plants adapt to environmental stress, such knowledge can be used to engineer plants with strongest tolerance to the stress conditions--supercrops--to benefit agriculture. This project aims to find out the molecular mechanisms underlying plant responses to environmental stress factors. Almost all extracellular signals, including plant hormones, light, stress factors, and pathogenic or symbiotic elicitors, can elicit Calcium (Ca2+) pulses or transients which serve as "second messengers" in further signaling processes. Because different signals often induce distinct and specific cellular responses, an interesting question is how cells distinguish the Ca2+ messengers produced by different stimuli and respond accordingly. Studies suggest that signaling components that "sense" and "interpret" the Ca2+ parameters hold the key. Recent studies identified a new family of Ca2+ sensor proteins (CBLs) that play a role in plant response to stress signals. This family of calcium sensors works by interacting with a family of protein kinases (CIPKs). This project will use a number of approaches including biochemical, cell biological, genetics, and genomics tools, to understand how this CBL-CIPK network transduces the signals from the outside to the inside of plant cells. This research will involve undergraduate students who will learn first-hand biological research skills in the lab. In addition, this project will be educating high school biology teachers who will participate in lab experimental work during the summer. Such outreach activity will provide a link between K-12 schools and university research labs and will bring current research topics to the K-12 classrooms.