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

该INSPIRE奖的部分资金来自生物局分子和细胞生物科学部的网络和调控计划；生物局生物基础设施部的生物信息学进展计划；工程局化学、生物工程、环境和运输系统司的化学、生化和生物技术系统计划；以及网络基础设施办公室。多细胞生物，如植物，对非生物胁迫的反应是由关键的调节蛋白或转录因子协调的多种生理和分子反应。这些转录因子的活性使植物能够适应环境变化并保持动态平衡。实验数据集，如转录图谱，目前由计算工具分析，不足以发现新的应激反应调节蛋白。该项目的目标是开发一种新的计算和建模范例，具有足够的能力来识别参与控制多个细胞类型的拟南芥中铁稳态的先前未知的调节成分。INTELLECUTAL优点：这些PI提出的跨学科方法提出了一种新的范式，将新的基因组实验技术、工程建模方法和并行计算结合起来，以阐明不同细胞类型内和之间涉及铁稳态的已知调控元件的作用。系统工程、植物生物学和计算机工程的结合将有助于为现有问题创造新的解决方案，并鼓励人们着眼于解决使用传统方法仍然令人生畏的具有挑战性的问题。更广泛的影响：研究人员将开发新的工具来帮助绘制调控控制点，使植物能够对生物和非生物应激源做出反应。一个项目网站将作为连接研究界的渠道，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。这将是应对到2050年养活90亿人的重大挑战所必需的。由于北卡罗来纳州立大学在工程和植物生物学方面的历史成就，它是发展这种跨学科整合的天然场所。通过这一项目，私人投资促进机构将支持四名博士生的跨学科教育。研究人员还计划将这项拟议研究的概念整合到一项推广倡议中，让8年级和9年级的学生了解到植物可以通过选择性和有针对性的基因表达机制来应对压力。目标是通过凯南研究员计划(http://kenanfellows.org/)to)扩大这些个人投资机构与当地初中(利斯维尔中学)和高中(韦克菲尔德高中)科学教师建立的现有关系，并将有针对性的课程计划纳入他们的生物技术学习模块。

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.