Fatty Acid Signaling Pathway and Its Role in Plant Defense

植物病害每年都对农业生产和粮食供应造成破坏性影响。植物与给定病原体的相互作用的结果由几个因素决定，包括基因型、植物的生理状态、环境信号以及活化的信号传导途径之间可能发生的任何特定相互作用。在被提出来调节防御反应的各种信号分子中，水杨酸（SA）和茉莉酸（JA）引起不同的反应并经历广泛的串扰，这可能影响导致抗性反应的各种信号的幅度和大小。PI实验室以前的工作表明，SSI 2编码的硬脂酰-ACP去饱和酶调节细胞中不饱和脂肪酸（FA）的水平，而油酸的水平在调节防御途径中至关重要。三个基因已被确定，参与原核途径的FA的生物合成，和功能的丧失，其中恢复的各种表型在ssi 2突变体植物。这些基因的功能分析表明，油酸（18：1）的水平调节的甘油脂代谢在防御信号通路的调节中发挥重要作用。该项目旨在通过对先前鉴定的抑制突变体进行生物化学和分子分析，通过分离和表征能够将ssi 2突变体恢复为野生型样的额外突变，并鉴定负责防御相关信号传导的信号分子，进一步表征FA信号传导途径。FA信号通路的表征和破译其在防御中的作用将提供关于各种通路如何相互作用的关键信息。这将产生巨大的影响，因为它将允许同时操纵多种防御信号通路，并设计出对各种细菌，真菌和病毒病原体具有抗性的作物。该研究将促进本科生，研究生和博士后学生的培训，并通过分享项目产生的想法和材料来加强研究基础设施。其目的是培养一个本科生社区，并为少数民族学生提供逐步成熟的科学经验。研究所还计划将研究与英国现有的推广服务相结合，以提高对作物抗性最新进展的认识，并改善农民和农业企业代表对转基因作物的态度。

Plant diseases have a devastating impact on agricultural production and food supply every year. The outcome of the interaction of plants with a given pathogen is governed by several factors, including the genotype, the physiological state of the plant, environmental signals and, any specific interactions that might occur between the activated signaling pathways. Among various signaling molecules proposed to modulate defense responses, salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA) elicit distinct responses and undergo extensive cross talk, which is likely to influence the amplitude and magnitude of various signals leading to a resistance response. Previous work from the PI's laboratory has shown that SSI2 encoded stearoyl-ACP desaturase regulates the levels of unsaturated fatty acids (FA) in the cell and the levels of oleic acid are critical in regulating defense pathways. Three genes have been identified, which participate in the prokaryotic pathway of FA biosynthesis, and a loss-of-function of which restores the various phenotypes in ssi2 mutant plants. Functional analysis of these genes indicates that oleic acid (18:1) levels regulated by glycerolipid metabolism play an important role in the regulation of defense signaling pathways. This project aims to characterize the FA signaling pathway further by carrying out biochemical and molecular analysis of previously identified suppressor mutants, by isolation and characterization of additional mutations that are able to revert the ssi2 mutant to wild type-like and identify the signal molecule(s) responsible for defense-related signaling. Characterization of the FA signaling pathway and deciphering its role in defense would provide critical information about how various pathways interact with each other. This would have enormous implications, as it would permit the manipulation of multiple defense signaling pathways at the same time and engineer crops that are resistant to a wide variety of bacterial, fungal and viral pathogens. The research will facilitate training of undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students and enhance the infrastructure of research through sharing of ideas and materials generated by the project. The aim is to foster a community of undergraduate students and provide minority students with progressively sophisticated scientific experiences. The PIs also plan to integrate research with extension services available at UK to enhance awareness of the recent advances in crop resistance and improve attitude towards genetically modified crops among farmers and agribusiness representatives.