CAREER: Regulation and Function of Imprinted Gene Expression in Seeds

职业：种子中印记基因表达的调控和功能

• 批准号: 1453459
• 负责人: Mary Gehring
• 金额: $ 180.02万
• 依托单位: Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-12-15 至 2021-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1453459&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Regulation; Function; Imprinted; Gene

Plant seeds are an important part of the human diet, and they also play a vital role in plant reproduction. However, the precise molecular details of how seeds develop and grow are not well understood. The goal of this project is to advance our understanding of seed development, which in turn could have a beneficial outcome for production of seeds as a nutritious food source. The project will also provide interdisciplinary education and training in genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, and molecular biology for high school teachers, undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. High school science teachers will spend two summers in the laboratory, participating directly in research activities and developing inquiry-based learning modules related to plant biology research, which they will bring back to their classrooms. This partnership will establish long-term connections to teachers to increase their students' ability to analyze quantitative information and generate knowledge from scientific exploration. Seed development in flowering plants is regulated, in part, by genes that are imprinted. Gene imprinting is an epigenetic phenomenon whereby alleles of genes are differentially expressed depending on whether they are inherited from the male or female parent. To understand and manipulate seed biology to beneficial effect requires deciphering the regulation and function of imprinted gene expression. Recent studies have created catalogues of imprinted genes in diverse plant species, and have yielded important insights about the extent of imprinting and the types of genes subject to imprinted expression. However, it remains unclear whether all imprinting is functional, or whether some instances of imprinting are bystander events due to genome-wide epigenetic reprogramming processes. The major aims of this research project are to comprehensively evaluate the function of imprinted genes in seed development, to test whether pure epigenetic variation is sufficient to induce imprinting variation, and to understand the gene networks that regulate imprinting by taking advantage of natural variation in imprinting phenotypes. This research will have substantial outcomes in further determining the functional consequences of imprinting and in understanding epigenetic mechanisms that regulate imprinted expression, increasing our understanding of seed biology and role of natural variation in these processes. Finally, tools to precisely engineer the DNA methylome in a sequence specific manner will be developed, allowing a direct test of whether specific DNA methylation patterns are necessary and sufficient for imprinted expression. These tools have the potential to be functional in other plant and animal species.

植物种子是人类饮食的重要组成部分，它们在植物繁殖中也起着至关重要的作用。 然而，种子如何发育和生长的精确分子细节还没有得到很好的理解。 该项目的目标是促进我们对种子发育的理解，这反过来又可能对种子作为营养食物来源的生产产生有益的结果。 该项目还将为高中教师、本科生、研究生和博士后研究员提供遗传学、基因组学、生物信息学和分子生物学方面的跨学科教育和培训。 高中科学教师将在实验室度过两个夏天，直接参与研究活动，并开发与植物生物学研究相关的探究式学习模块，并将其带回课堂。这种伙伴关系将与教师建立长期联系，以提高学生分析定量信息和从科学探索中获得知识的能力。开花植物的种子发育部分是由印记基因调控的。 基因印迹是一种表观遗传现象，即基因的等位基因的差异表达取决于它们是否遗传自男性或女性父母。 为了理解和操纵种子生物学以产生有益的效果，需要破译印记基因表达的调控和功能。最近的研究已经创建了不同植物物种的印记基因目录，并对印记的程度和印记表达的基因类型产生了重要的见解。然而，目前还不清楚是否所有的印记是功能性的，或者是否一些情况下的印记是旁观者事件，由于全基因组表观遗传重编程过程。本研究的主要目的是全面评估印迹基因在种子发育中的功能，以测试是否纯粹的表观遗传变异是足以诱导印迹变异，并了解基因网络，通过利用印迹表型的自然变异来调节印迹。这项研究将在进一步确定印迹的功能后果和理解调节印迹表达的表观遗传机制方面产生实质性成果，增加我们对种子生物学和自然变异在这些过程中的作用的理解。最后，将开发以序列特异性方式精确工程化DNA甲基化组的工具，允许直接测试特定的DNA甲基化模式是否是印记表达所必需和足够的。这些工具有可能在其他植物和动物物种中发挥作用。

项目成果

A Small RNA Pathway Mediates Allelic Dosage in Endosperm

• DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.11.078
• 发表时间: 2017-12-19
• 期刊: CELL REPORTS
• 影响因子: 8.8
• 作者: Erdmann, Robert M.;Satyaki, Prasad R. V.;Gehring, Mary
• 通讯作者: Gehring, Mary

A variably imprinted epiallele impacts seed development

可变印迹表观等位基因影响种子发育

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007469
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: PLOS Genetics
• 影响因子: 4.5
• 作者: Pignatta, Daniela;Novitzky, Katherine;Satyaki, P. R.;Gehring, Mary;Köhler, Claudia
• 通讯作者: Köhler, Claudia