Essential Nature of Fatty Acid Elongation in Plant Development

极长链脂肪酸（VLCFA），含有20个或更多个碳单元的那些，被掺入各种生理学上重要的植物化学物质中，包括表皮蜡、角质、木栓质、鞘脂和一些磷脂和种子油。 编码参与VLCFA产生的几种酶的基因已被分离出来。 基于阻断这些酶之一的产生的玉米突变体是胚胎致死的这一发现，VLCFA在玉米胚胎发生期间必须是必需的。 因此，阻断必需VLCFA积累的突变体提供了一个理想的实验系统，以确定VLCFA衍生的植物化学物质在植物发育中的重要作用。拟议的项目将通过确定区分突变胚和正常胚发育的形态差异来确定VLCFA的重要发育作用。 它还将通过比较VLCFA衍生化合物在正常和突变胚胎中的积累来确定哪些VLCFA衍生化合物在胚胎发育期间是必需的。 最后，将分离克服与VLCFA生产中的遗传阻断相关的胚胎致死性的突变体。 从长远来看，这些突变体可用于解剖利用VLCFAs的生物化学途径的多样性网络。拟议的研究通过继续利用整合遗传和生物化学方法的长期研究合作中固有的协同作用，满足了理解生物化学和发展之间复杂相互作用的挑战。 该项目将为不同的早期职业科学家群体提供优秀的跨学科培训经验，因为它将使用假设驱动和全基因组分析的组合，并应用尖端技术来解决植物生物学中的重大问题，这些问题已被证明是单学科方法的障碍。

Very long chain fatty acids (VLCFAs), those that contain 20 or more carbon units, are incorporated into a wide variety of physiologically significant phytochemicals, including cuticular waxes, cutin, suberin, sphingolipids, and some phospholipids and seed oils. Genes that encode several of the enzymes involved in the production of VLCFAs have been isolated. Based on the finding that maize mutants that block the production of one of these enzymes are embryo lethal, VLCFAs must be essential during maize embryogenesis. Mutants that block the accumulation of essential VLCFAs therefore provide an ideal experimental system to determine the essential role of VLCFA-derived phytochemicals in plant development.The proposed project will define the essential developmental role(s) of VLCFAs, by determining the morphological differences that distinguish the development of mutant embryos from normal embryos. It will also establish which VLCFA-derived compound(s) are essential during embryo development, by comparing the accumulation of VLCFA-derived compounds in normal and mutant embryos. Finally, mutants that overcome the embryo lethality associated with genetic blocks in the production of VLCFAs will be isolated. In the long term, these mutants can be used to dissect the diverse network of biochemical pathways that utilize VLCFAs.The proposed studies meet the challenge of understanding the complex interplay between biochemistry and development by continuing to exploit the synergy inherent in a long-term research collaboration that integrates genetic and biochemical approaches. This project will provide excellent cross-disciplinary training experiences to a diverse group of early-career scientists because it will use a combination of hypothesis-driven and genome-wide analyses, and apply cutting-edge technologies to address significant questions in plant biology that have proven recalcitrant to a mono-disciplinary approach.