An Integrated Genomic and Functional Analysis of the Plant Hypersensitive Response

Gurmukh(Guri)Johal(普渡大学)和Brian Dilkes(普渡大学)有许多疾病可以感染农作物，导致减产甚至作物损失。因此，农作物抵御疾病的能力是一个非常重要的农业特征。农民可以用杀虫剂避免一些疾病，或者育种者可以开发出抵抗疾病的作物品种。农作物有能力通过防御机制对致病微生物做出反应，这种机制被称为植物过敏性反应(HR)。这是指在感染传播到植物中的其他细胞之前，感染细胞死亡的过程。尽管它对保持健康的作物很重要，但关于人力资源仍有许多未知之处。在这项工作中，将使用一种多学科的方法，涉及许多基于田间和实验室的技术，以更好地了解玉米的HR，玉米是美国最有经济价值的作物。参与控制HR的基因和过程将被识别和描述。虽然这项工作将主要在玉米上进行，但HR的许多特征很可能在不同的作物中共享。因此，这项工作将为植物抵御疾病的最重要方式之一提供基本的见解，这些知识将有助于通过提高作物对疾病的抵抗力来开发改良作物。与北卡罗来纳州自然科学博物馆的外联活动将侧重于遗传学、植物育种、生物技术和相关的社会影响方面的教育活动，并将建立在与博物馆现有合作的基础上，该博物馆为初中生、高中生、家庭学校和成年学生及其教师开发了几个教学模块。这些持续的项目将得到支持，并将围绕DNA序列分析、生物技术和社会开发几个新的项目。在之前的工作中，一种新的基因筛查被用来识别与控制HR的自然遗传变异相关的基因座、基因和途径。在这个项目中，将使用涉及诱变、田间遗传学、高通量基因组和转录测序、代谢组学、生物信息学、显微镜和分子生物学的多学科方法，从分子遗传学、转录、生化和组织学的角度来了解HR。控制HR反应的基因和途径将被识别和表征。HR将在细胞、转录和代谢水平上进行观察。将展示一种新的和潜在的广泛适用的方法来识别和描述与定量表型相关的突变的实用性。本项目产生的测序数据将通过存放在Short Read档案(www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra)公开获取。在转录水平上控制HR的基因的位置信息(表达数量性状基因座？EQTL)将在MaizeGDB(maizegdb.org)上提供。生物材料将通过玉米遗传合作社传播，种质描述将包括在MaizeGDB中。

Co-PIs Gurmukh (Guri) Johal (Purdue University) and Brian Dilkes (Purdue University)There are many diseases that can infect crop plants, leading to lower yields and even crop loss. The ability of crop plants to fight off diseases is therefore a very important agricultural trait. Farmers can avoid some diseases with pesticides, or breeders can develop crop varieties that resist diseases. Crops have the ability to fight off diseases by reacting to the disease-causing microorganism with defensive mechanisms, known as the plant hypersensitive response (HR). This refers to a process whereby an infected cell dies before the infection can spread to other cells in the plant. Despite its importance to maintain healthy crops, much remains unknown about the HR. In this work, a multi-disciplinary approach involving a number of field and lab-based techniques will be used to gain a better understanding of the HR in corn, the most economically valuable crop in the US. The genes and processes involved in controlling the HR will be identified and characterized. While this work will be performed primarily in corn, it is likely that many features of the HR are shared among different crops. As such this work will provide fundamental insights into one of the most important ways plants defend themselves against diseases, and the knowledge will be useful to develop improved crop plants by making them more resistant to diseases. Outreach activities with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences will focus on educational activities on genetics, plant breeding, biotechnology and associated societal implications and will build on an existing collaboration with the museum that has developed several instructional modules for middle, high school, home school and mature students and their teachers. These continuing programs will be supported and several new programs will be developed around DNA sequence analysis, biotechnology and society.In previous work, a novel genetic screen was used to identify loci, genes and pathways associated with natural genetic variation that controlled HR. In this project, a multi-disciplinary approach involving mutagenesis, field genetics, high-throughput genomic and transcriptomic sequencing, metabolomics, bioinformatics, microscopy and molecular biology will be used to gain an understanding of the HR from molecular genetic, transcriptional, biochemical and histological perspectives. Genes and pathways controlling the HR response will be identified and characterized. The HR will be observed at cellular, transcriptional and metabolic levels. The utility of a novel and potentially widely-applicable approach for the identification and characterization of mutations conferring quantitative phenotypes will be demonstrated. Public access to sequencing data generated this project will be made possible through deposition at the Short Read Archive (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra). Information on the position of genes controlling the HR at the transcriptional level (expression Quantitative Trait Loci ? eQTL) will be made available at MaizeGDB (maizegdb.org). Biological materials will be disseminated via the Maize Genetics Coop and germplasm descriptions will be included in MaizeGDB.