Integrating Environmental Variables in Plant Circadian and Photoperiodic Timing.

植物进化是为了应对有利和有害的环境变量，如光，温度，湿度和害虫的威胁。为了抵消日常压力，并最大限度地提高白天的能量储存，植物开发了复杂的调节电路，可以预测日常（昼夜）和季节（光周期）的节奏，从而提供了进化优势和改善生物体的适应性。因此，植物昼夜节律控制植物生长和发育的所有方面，包括开花时间、光合作用、纬度物种分布以及对干旱、寒冷和害虫的抗性。据估计，超过三分之一的植物基因受昼夜节律控制，适当的日长测量对维持植物生长、繁殖和作物产量至关重要。人们对这些生物钟如何测量和适应各种环境信号知之甚少。这对于适应环境光的质量和数量的每日和季节变化尤其如此。目前的提案旨在使用多学科方法来模拟植物如何感知和适应给定环境中蓝光强度的变化。除了获得对控制植物光生物学的化学过程的基本了解外，该项目还可能为提高可再生能源的作物产量和生物量生产提供新的途径，并开发出更具抗旱性和抗虫害性的植物新品种。 该项目将为本科生提供独特的培训机会，并推广到当地的科学教师和K-12学生。拟议的研究利用了最近发现的新信号机制，描绘了对环境刺激的适应性反应。协调一致的化学，生物物理和合成生物学的方法将提供在复杂的信号网络的适应性反应的定量理解。主要技术目标有三个方面。1)将开发化学动力学和预测数学模型的组合，以获得季节和日常时钟中光氧电压蛋白功能的系统级理解。这些努力的直接结果将是对光-氧-电压蛋白功能的多种化学输入如何决定信号转导和光遗传学工具开发的详细理解。2)该项目将利用对光-氧-电压蛋白信号网络的新理解来设计哺乳动物细胞中的合成基因电路，从而在不存在可能影响信号转导的外源植物蛋白的情况下测试对网络的理解。3)最终的目标是联合收割机这种理解，以指导新的拟南芥菌株的建设，表现出改变昼夜功能和植物开花期，以证明如何光氧电压蛋白质化学是必不可少的触发系统水平的适应性变化，在植物系统。

Plants evolved in response to advantageous and deleterious environmental variables, such as light, temperature, moisture and the threat of pests. To counteract daily stresses, and to maximize energy storage during the day, plants developed complex regulatory circuits that can predict daily (circadian) and seasonal (photoperiodic) rhythms, thus providing an evolutionary advantage and improved organism fitness. As such, plant circadian rhythms control all facets of plant growth and development, including flowering times, photosynthesis, latitudinal species distribution, and resistance to drought, cold and pests. It is estimated that greater than one third of all plant genes are under circadian control and that proper day-length measurements are imperative to the maintenance of plant growth, reproduction and crop yields. How these circadian clocks measure and adapt to a wide array of environmental signals is poorly understood. This is particularly the case for adaptation to daily and seasonal variations in the quality and quantity of environmental light. The current proposal aims to use a multidisciplinary approach to model how plants sense and adapt to changes in the intensity of blue-light in a given environment. Aside from gaining fundamental understanding of the chemical processes that govern plant photobiology, the project is likely to provide new avenues to improve crop yields and biomass production for renewable energy, and develop novel varieties of plants that are more drought and pest resistant. The project will provide unique training opportunities for undergraduate students and outreach to local science teachers and K-12 students.How Light-Oxygen-Voltage proteins integrate environmental cues is poorly understood. The proposed research leverages recent discoveries of new signaling mechanisms that delineate adaptive responses to environmental stimuli. The concerted chemical, biophysical and synthetic biology approach will provide quantitative understanding of adaptive responses in complex signaling networks. The primary technical objectives are three fold. 1) A combination of chemical kinetics and predictive mathematical models will be developed to gain a systems level understanding of Light-Oxygen-Voltage protein function in seasonal and daily clocks. A direct result of these efforts will be a detailed understanding of how multiple chemical inputs to Light-Oxygen-Voltage protein function dictate signal transduction and optogenetic tool development. 2) The project will use the new understanding of Light-Oxygen-Voltage protein signaling networks to design synthetic gene circuits in mammalian cells, and thus enable the testing of the understanding of the network in the absence of extraneous plant proteins that may affect signal transduction. 3) The ultimate goal is to combine this understanding to guide the construction of new Arabidopsis thaliana strains that exhibit altered circadian function and plant flowering periods to demonstrate how Light-Oxygen-Voltage protein chemistry is essential for triggering systems-level adaptive changes in a plant system.