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中的基本能源，并为维持所有动物的生命提供必要的资源，无论是直接通过消费，还是间接，因为食肉动物吃草食动物，食草动物吃植物。对植物的巨大消费压力导致了防御被消费的策略的显着多样性的演变。这个项目将操纵普通马利筋的基因，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系统，以了解它们对以乳草为食的有机体的影响，例如受到威胁的帝王蝶。破译植物防御机制将极大地推动进化生态学领域的发展。这个项目将把用于农作物的方法转化为自然群落，展示基因操作可以提高我们对物种相互作用和自然群落的生态学的理解的不同方式。结果将受到对保护物种感兴趣的个人和组织的欢迎，如帝王蝶，并将有助于公共宣传努力以及从K-12到研究生的各级教育活动。理论、观察和实验表明，许多植物特征是通过自然选择进化而来的，以抵御昆虫的攻击。尽管有许多关于植物特性如何减少食草性的证明，但科学家们对大多数野生植物物种潜在的植物防御反应机制缺乏了解。这项研究将利用分子生物学和植物信号转导的最新进展，操纵基于激素茉莉酸的植物防御信号转导中的一个关键和普遍的途径。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品系。关键的挑战将是提高转化体的效率和产量，以及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转录本的表达和植物对茉莉酸的敏感性来验证COI1成功的遗传沉默。第三个目标是提高无性系繁殖植物的能力，用于生态学实验。该项目将使用RNA干扰来从基因上沉默乳草中内源茉莉酸的感知，这一方法承担着巨大的风险。这种原生植物因其与许多害虫的相互作用而被研究。如果该项目成功，乳草可能成为植物生态研究的典范。

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.