Understanding Regulatory Mechanisms of ERF/AP2 Transcription Factor Activity in Higher Plants

知识价值。无根植物的生长依赖于细胞对环境变化的准确和及时的反应。面对全球气候变化，这导致进一步的区域极端温度和降水[例如，极端高温更多，极端寒冷更少，严重干旱，洪水（哥本哈根诊断，2009）]，了解植物如何实现抗逆性将变得更加重要。细胞对环境变化的反应依赖于转录因子，并由转录因子促进，转录因子通过激活或抑制基因表达作为反应介质。研究表明，转录因子可以通过泛素蛋白酶体途径进行调控。这个高度保守的系统在真核细胞中促进了蛋白质底物的识别和降解。AP2/ERF家族是植物特有的转录因子家族，在植物发育和非生物胁迫（干旱、热、冷和盐）耐受中起着关键作用。最近的研究表明，该家族的成员可以与一组称为bpm的适配器蛋白相互作用，已知bpm可以组装成一个复合物，参与蛋白酶体降解底物的识别和标记。本项目将研究BPM底物接头如何调节AP2/ERF转录因子及其对植物发育过程和胁迫反应的影响。该项目的具体目标是：1)确定BPM与ERF/AP2转录因子组装的特异性，包括相互作用模式和位置；2)确定BPM-ERF/AP2相互作用如何介导转录活性；3)确定BPM功能对植物表型的影响。总的来说，这项工作将产生影响植物转录活动的新调控机制的新知识。此外，由于BPM蛋白在动物中具有同源物，因此这些知识将适用于广泛的领域。更广泛的影响。由于全球环境的快速变化，了解监管过程如何影响植物性能变得越来越重要。这项工作将进一步加深我们对基因表达控制如何影响植物生长和抗逆性的理解。由于蛋白酶体降解途径在生命领域的保守性，拟议的工作有可能提供与广泛的科学界相关的新的跨学科信息。这个项目将通过建立现有的知识基础和直接让学生参与研究来影响学生的教育。除了培养研究生和研究生外，它还将促进本科生的培养，重点是招收代表性不足的少数民族学生。本科生将能够在这个项目的框架内完成较小的目标。他们将学习广泛的技术方法，并将参与有关他们的研究及其与该领域当前工作的关系的广泛讨论。该项目还将使学生有机会在华盛顿州立大学的校园活动中传播他们的成果，如华盛顿州立大学年度本科生海报竞赛和华盛顿州立大学展示，或在全国会议上。总的来说，这个项目将为学生提供宝贵的经验，对他们未来在科学领域的职业生涯很重要。因此，在促进我们对植物分子机制的理解的同时，该项目将有力地促进学生的教学和培训，从而也将产生广泛、积极的社会和教育影响。

Intellectual merit. Growth of sessile plants depends on accurate and timely cellular responses to environmental changes. In the face of global climate change, which is leading to further regional extremes in temperature and precipitation [e.g. more hot extremes, fewer cold extremes, severe drought, flooding (The Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2009)], understanding how plants achieve stress tolerance will become ever more important. Cellular responses to environmental change depend on and are facilitated by transcription factors that serve as response mediators by activating or repressing gene expression. It has been demonstrated that transcription factors can be regulated through the ubiquitin proteasome pathway. This highly conserved system in eukaryotic cells facilitates recognition and degradation of protein substrates. A major transcription factor family specific to plants, which plays a key role in development and abiotic stress tolerance (drought, heat, cold, and salinity) is represented by the AP2/ERF family. Recent work has shown that members of this family can interact with a set of adapter proteins, called BPMs, which are known to assemble into a complex that participates in recognition and tagging of substrates for proteasomal degradation. This project will study how BPM substrate adaptors act to regulate AP2/ERF transcription factors and the resulting impacts on developmental processes and stress responses in plants. The specific aims of this project are 1) to determine the specificity of BPM assembly with ERF/AP2 transcription factors, including interaction patterns and locations, 2) to determine how BPM-ERF/AP2 interaction may mediate transcriptional activity and 3) to determine the impact of BPM function on plant phenotype. Overall, the work will generate new knowledge about novel regulatory mechanisms affecting transcriptional activities in plants. In addition, because the BPM proteins have orthologs in animals, this knowledge will be applicable across a broad range of fields.Broader impacts. Due to the rapidly changing environment across the globe, knowledge of how regulatory processes affect plant performance becomes increasingly important. The proposed work will further our understanding of how the control of gene expression impacts plant growth and stress resistance. Due to the conserved nature of the proteasome degradation pathway across kingdoms of life, the proposed work has the potential to provide new, interdisciplinary information relevant to a broad scientific community. This project will impact student education by both building on the current knowledge base and by directly involving students in the research. Besides training graduate and postgraduate students, it will foster training of undergraduate students with an emphasis on the recruitment of underrepresented minorities. The undergraduate students will be able to accomplish smaller objectives within the framework of this project. They will learn a wide range of technical approaches and will be involved in extensive discussions about their research and how it relates to the current work in the field. The project will also give students the opportunity to disseminate their results during WSU campus activities, such as the WSU Annual Undergraduate Student Poster Competition and the WSU Showcase, or at national meetings. In general, the project will provide students with a valuable experience, important for their future careers in the sciences. Hence, while advancing our understanding of molecular mechanisms in plants, the project will strongly promote student teaching and training and will thereby also have broad, positive societal and educational impacts.