INSPIRE: Dynamic Regulatory Modeling of the Iron Deficiency Response in Arabidopsis thaliana

该INSPIRE奖部分由生物学理事会分子和细胞生物科学部的网络和监管计划资助;生物学理事会生物基础设施部的生物信息学进步计划;化学，生物化学和生物技术系统计划在化学，生物工程，环境和运输系统部工程;和网络基础设施办公室植物等多细胞生物通过关键调节蛋白或转录因子协调的多种生理和分子反应来应对非生物胁迫。这些转录因子的活性使植物能够适应环境变化并保持体内平衡。实验数据集，如转录谱，目前分析的计算工具，是不足以发现新的应激反应调控蛋白。本项目的目标是开发一种新的计算和建模范式，具有足够的能力来识别以前未表征的参与控制A. thaliana thaliana在多种细胞类型。智力优势：这些PI提出的跨学科方法提出了一个新的范式，统一了新的基因组实验技术，工程建模方法和并行计算，以澄清已知的调控元素在不同细胞类型内和跨铁稳态的作用。系统工程，植物生物学和计算机工程的整合将有助于为现有问题创造新的解决方案，并鼓励解决使用传统方法仍然令人生畏的挑战性问题的愿景。更广泛的影响：研究人员将开发新的工具来帮助绘制调控点，使植物能够对生物和非生物压力源做出反应。一个项目网站将作为研究界的一个渠道，提供微阵列数据、计算机代码和计算框架的储存库。拟议的多学科方法将精简资源和专门知识，目标是在压力条件下提高作物产量。这对于应对到2050年养活90亿人的巨大挑战是必要的。北卡罗来纳州州立大学是一个自然的地方，发展这种跨学科的整合，由于该机构在工程和植物生物学的历史成功。通过这个项目，PI将支持四名博士生的跨学科教育。研究人员还计划将拟议研究中的概念整合到一项外展计划中，让8年级和9年级的学生了解植物可以通过选择性和靶向基因表达机制来应对压力的想法。其目标是通过凯南研究员计划（http：//kenanfellows.org/）扩大这些PI与当地中学（Leesville Middle）和高中（韦克菲尔德高中）科学教师建立的现有关系，将有针对性的课程计划纳入其生物技术学习模块。

This INSPIRE award is partially funded by the Networks and Regulation Program in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences in the Directorate for Biology; the Advances in Biological Informatics Program in the Division of Biological Infrastructure in the Directorate for Biology; the Chemical, Biochemical, and Biotechnology Systems Program in the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems in the Directorate for Engineering; and the Office of Cyberinfrastructure. Multicellular organisms such as plants react to abiotic stress with a multitude of physiological and molecular responses orchestrated by key regulatory proteins, or transcription factors. The activity of these transcription factors allows the plant to adapt to environmental change and maintain homeostasis. Experimental datasets, such as transcriptional profiles, are currently analyzed by computational tools that are inadequate to uncover novel stress response regulatory proteins. The objective of this project is to develop a novel computing and modeling paradigm with sufficient power to identify previously uncharacterized regulatory components involved in the control of iron homeostasis in A. thaliana across multiple cell types. INTELLECUTAL MERIT: The interdisciplinary approach proposed by these PIs presents a new paradigm that unifies novel genomic experimental techniques, engineering modeling approaches, and parallel computing to clarify the role of known regulatory elements involved in iron homeostasis within and across different cell types. The integration of systems engineering, plant biology, and computer engineering will help create new solutions to existing problems and encourages a vision for addressing challenging issues that remain intimidating using traditional approaches. BROADER IMPACTS: The investigators will develop novel tools to help map the regulatory control points that enable plants to respond to biological and non-biological stressors. A project website will serve as a conduit to the research community, making available repositories of microarray data, computer codes and the computing frameworks. The proposed multi-disciplinary approach will streamline resources and expertise with the goal to increase crop yields under stress conditions. This will be necessary to meet the grand challenge of feeding 9 billion people by 2050. North Carolina State University is a natural place to develop this interdisciplinary integration due to historical success of the institution in engineering and plant biology. Through this project, the PIs will support the interdisciplinary education of four PhD students. The investigators also plan to integrate concepts from the proposed research into an outreach initiative to expose students from 8th and 9th grades to the idea that plant can deal with stress through selective and targeted gene expression mechanisms. The goal is to expand on current relationships establish by these PIs with local middle (Leesville Middle) and high school (Wakefield High) science teachers through the Kenan Fellows program (http://kenanfellows.org/)to incorporate targeted lesson plans into their biotechnology learning modules.