Integrative Analysis of Plasticity in Cell Fate Determination in Plants

Pi：Julia Bailey-Serres(加州大学河滨分校)Copis：Siobhan Brady和Nelima Sinha(加州大学戴维斯分校)和Roger Deal(埃默里大学)从种子萌发到下一代受精，植物发育由基因决定的过程精心安排，这些过程受到环境因素的微调。这需要在植物生命周期的整个过程中对单个细胞中的基因网络进行精确调控。该项目将破译植物特定类型细胞内基因的复杂调控。这将通过将该团队在模式植物拟南芥中首创的方法转移到三种重要的作物上来实现：水稻、紫花苜蓿和番茄。这些技术允许从叶、根或其他器官的目标细胞亚群中分离含有DNA和RNA的细胞核以及将mRNA转化为蛋白质的核糖体，而不需要解剖。开发的新遗传资源将用于研究发展如何受到美国农业面临的两大环境威胁：干旱和洪水。其结果将是更好地理解植物发育与环境线索的结合。该项目将产生多个更广泛的影响。利用并行、多层次和计算稳健的分析，该项目将解决两个重要的生物学问题：根和芽的干细胞(分生组织)中的基因调控如何在不同物种之间存在差异？环境胁迫如何影响根部特化细胞类型的发育？这些发现将提供有助于下游提高非生物应激耐受性的见解。它还将为评估三种重要作物的细胞类型特异性表达提供资源。种子材料和数据集将通过NCBI短读档案(SRA、http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra)和Gramene(http://www.gramene.org/).))与植物基因组研究社区共享最后，该项目将吸引博士后研究人员和研究生参加生物学和计算科学方面的高级跨学科培训，他们将受益于指导本科生进行研究的经验。最后，该项目将使高中生参与课堂和实验室，开发教学工具，并促进对植物研究对人类重要性的更多理解。

PI: Julia Bailey-Serres (University of California - Riverside)CoPIs: Siobhan Brady and Neelima Sinha (University of California - Davis) and Roger Deal (Emory University) From the germination of a seed to the fertilization events that lead to the next generation, plant development is exquisitely orchestrated by genetically determined processes that are fine-tuned by environmental cues. This entails the precise regulation of networks of genes in individual cells over the course of the plant life cycle. This project will decipher the complex regulation of genes within specific types of cells of the plant. This will be accomplished by transfer of methods pioneered by this team in the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana to three important crops: rice, alfalfa, and tomato. These technologies allow for the isolation of cell nuclei containing DNA and RNA and the ribosomes that translate mRNA into protein from targeted subpopulations of cells of a leaf, root or other organs, without the need for dissection. The new genetic resources developed will be used to study how development is perturbed by two major environmental threats to US agriculture: drought and flood. The outcome will be a greater understanding of the integration of plant development with environmental cues. The project will have multiple broader impacts. Using parallel multi-tiered and computationally robust analyses, the project will address two important biological questions: How does gene regulation in the stem cells (meristem) of roots and shoots differ across species? How does environmental stress influence the development of specialized cell types in the root? The findings will provide insights that could facilitate downstream improvement of abiotic stress tolerance. It will also generate resources for the evaluation of cell-type specific expression in three important crops. The seed material and data sets will be shared with the plant genome research community through the NCBI Short Read Archive (SRA, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra) and Gramene (http://www.gramene.org/). Finally, the project will engage postdoctoral researchers and graduate students in advanced interdisciplinary training in biology and computational sciences, who will benefit from the experience of mentoring undergraduate students in research. Finally, the project will engage high school students in the classroom and the laboratory, develop teaching tools, and foster greater understanding of the importance of plant research to humankind.