EAGER: Genetic transformation of common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca: Creating a model plant for ecological investigations

植物是几乎所有食物链的基本能量来源，并直接或间接地为维持所有动物的生命提供必要的资源，因为食肉动物吃食草动物，而食草动物吃植物。植物承受着巨大的消耗压力，因此进化出了多种多样的防御策略。该项目将操纵普通马利筋的遗传学，以确定这些防御的基础。有了这些信息，研究人员可以改变野外种群的防御措施，以了解它们对以马利筋为食的生物的影响，比如受到威胁的帝王蝶。揭示植物的防御机制将对进化生态学的研究产生重要的推动作用。该项目将把用于作物植物的方法转化为自然群落，展示遗传操作可以提高我们对物种相互作用和自然群落生态学的理解的多种方式。结果将受到对保护帝王蝶等物种感兴趣的个人和组织的欢迎，并将有助于公共宣传工作以及从K-12到研究生的各级教育活动。理论、观察和实验表明，许多植物的特性是通过自然选择进化而来的，以抵御昆虫的攻击。尽管有许多证据表明植物性状可以减少食草性，但科学家们对大多数野生植物物种的植物防御反应机制缺乏了解。本研究将利用分子生物学和植物信号转导的最新进展，以茉莉酸激素为基础，操纵植物防御信号转导的关键和通用途径。研究人员将首先培育出COI1表达水平不同程度降低的转基因植物。关键的挑战将是提高转化子的效率和产量，并从与每个转化系相同的遗传背景中产生空载体对照。然后，他们将通过测量COI1转录物的表达和植物对茉莉酸的敏感性来验证COI1基因的成功沉默。第三个目标是提高用于生态实验的植物无性繁殖能力。该项目将采用rna干扰来从基因上抑制马利筋中对内源性茉莉酸的感知，这种方法有很大的风险。人们研究了这种本地植物与许多害虫的相互作用。如果该项目成功，马利筋将成为植物生态学研究的典范。

Plants are the basic energy source in nearly all food chains and provide the essential resources to sustain all animal life either directly, through consumption, or indirectly, because carnivores eat herbivores, which eat plants. Tremendous consumption pressure on plants has led to the evolution of a remarkable diversity of tactics to defend against being consumed. This project will manipulate the genetics of the common milkweed to identify the basis for these defenses. With this information, the researchers can alter defenses in field populations to understand their consequences for the organisms that feed on milkweed, such as the threatened monarch butterfly. Deciphering the mechanisms of plant defense will significantly advance the field of evolutionary ecology. This project will translate methods used for crop plants to natural communities, demonstrating diverse ways in which genetic manipulations can improve our understanding of the ecology of species interactions and natural communities. Results will be welcomed by individuals and organizations interested in conserving species such as the monarch butterfly, and will contribute to public outreach efforts as well as to educational activities at all levels from K-12 through graduate students. Theory, observations, and experiments show that many plants traits have evolved by natural selection to ward off insect attack. Despite numerous demonstrations of how plant traits can reduce herbivory, scientists lack an understanding of the mechanisms underlying plant defensive responses in most wild plant species. This research will take advantage of recent developments in molecular biology and plant signaling to manipulate a key and universal pathway in plant defense signaling based on the hormone jasmonic acid. The researchers will first produce lines of genetically transformed plants that have various reduced levels of COI1 expression. Key challenges will be to improve efficiency and yield of transformants, and to generate empty vector controls from the same genetic background as each transformed line. They will then verify successful genetic silencing of COI1 by measuring COI1 transcript expression and plant sensitivity to jasmonic acid. The third objective is to improve the ability to propagate plants clonally for use in ecological experiments. The project will employ RNA-interference to genetically silence the perception of endogenous jasmonic acid in milkweed, an approach that bears significant risk. This native plant has been studied for its interactions with many insect pests. If this project is successful, milkweed could become a model in plant ecological research.