NSF NPGI Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

本行动资助2015财年美国国家科学基金会国家植物基因组计划生物学博士后研究奖学金。该奖学金支持奖学金获得者在主办实验室的研究和培训计划，该奖学金获得者还提出了扩大生物学参与的计划。Kevin Potter的研究和培训计划的标题是“揭示水稻细胞分裂素信号的转录和基因组动力学”。该奖学金的主办机构是位于教堂山的北卡罗来纳大学，赞助科学家是约瑟夫·基伯博士。细胞分裂素是一种调节植物生长发育和其他生理过程的激素。该项目的总体目标是通过使用整合转录组学和基因组学方法来建立水稻细胞分裂素响应的动态模型，从而更深入地了解细胞分裂素如何调节这些过程。这些新发现可能为设计这一信号通路提供新的有效策略，以修改水稻的各种农艺性状，以满足未来的粮食供应和需求。该项目的更广泛影响包括培训本科生和研究生，协助莫尔黑德天文馆和科学中心为北卡罗来纳大学研究生设计一系列研讨会，并参与北卡罗来纳DNA日，这是一年一度的活动，来自北卡罗来纳各个机构的研究人员在科学和生物技术领域倡导职业，并为北卡罗来纳的高中提供生物学课程。培训目标包括获得新的转录组学和基因组学方法以及生物信息学工具的专业知识。本项目旨在：1)利用RNA-Seq和甲醛辅助分离调控元件（fare -seq）分别对水稻茎部和根部细胞分裂素响应的转录和开放染色质谱进行动力学表征；2)整合这些数据集，利用多种生物信息学工具建立细胞分裂素反应的动态模型，识别顺式作用的调控元件；3)水稻转座酶可及染色质适应性测定及测序（ATAC-seq），并结合RNA-Seq建立水稻茎部和根分生组织中细胞分裂素的组织特异性响应模型。这些模型将在未来的研究中通过改变不同的模块和成分来测试和验证，以确定它们在细胞分裂素信号通路中的特定功能以及对水稻农艺性状的影响。收集到的测序数据集将在NCBI的序列读取档案中提供。

This action funds an NSF National Plant Genome Initiative Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2015. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow who also presents a plan to broaden participation in biology. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Kevin Potter is "Uncovering the transcriptional and genomic dynamics of cytokinin signaling in rice". The host institution for the fellowship is the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Joseph Kieber.Cytokinins are plant hormones that are known to regulate various aspects of growth and development and other physiological processes in plants. The overarching goal of the project is to gain a deeper understanding into how cytokinin regulates these processes by using an integrative transcriptomic and genomic approach to build a dynamic model of the cytokinin response in rice. These new insights may provide new effective strategies to engineer this signaling pathway to modify various agronomical traits in rice needed to meet the future food supply and demand. The broader impacts of the project consist of training undergraduate and graduate students, assisting the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center with a series of workshops designed for UNC graduate students, and participating in the North Carolina DNA Day, which is an annual event where North Carolina researchers from various institutions advocate careers in science and biotechnology and give biology lessons to high schools throughout North Carolina. Training objectives include acquiring expertise with new transcriptomic and genomics methods, and bioinformatics tools.This project seeks to: 1) kinetically characterize the transcriptional and open chromatin profiles using RNA-Seq and formaldehyde-assisted isolation of regulatory elements (FAIRE-seq), respectively, in response to cytokinins in shoots and roots in rice; 2) integrate these datasets, build dynamic models for the cytokinin response, and identify cis-acting regulatory elements by utilizing a variety of bioinformatics tools; and 3) adapt assay for transposase accessible chromatin followed by sequencing (ATAC-seq) for use in rice and then use this method in conjunction with RNA-Seq to build dynamic tissue-specific cytokinin response models in the shoot and root meristems in rice. These models will be tested and validated in future studies by altering different modules and components to ascertain their specific function in the cytokinin signaling pathway and effects on agronomical traits in rice. The collected sequencing datasets will be made available at the Sequence Read Archive at NCBI.