Metabolism of plant derived small RNAs in Spider Mites

叶螨中植物源性小 RNA 的代谢

• 批准号: 1616725
• 负责人: Alex Flynt
• 金额: $ 19.83万
• 依托单位: University of Southern Mississippi
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-01 至 2019-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1616725&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Metabolism; plant; derived; small; RNAs

Spider mites are the number one most pesticide resistant crop pest worldwide. It has relatively few predators and is difficult to control. Its genome sequence has been determined recently, and it is much smaller than in its arthropod relatives, but contains an enlarged collection of genes involved in RNA interference (RNAi), a pathway that uses RNA molecules to turn genes on and off. The project will study how these genes work when a mite ingests small RNA when feeding on plants, and whether this system can be used to control gene expression in the animal. The research activities associated with this project will provide training at the graduate and undergraduate level in biochemistry, genetics, and computational biology. It will rely heavily on the involvement of undergraduate researchers, both in the classroom and the laboratory.The approach of the project involves exploring the ability of naturally occurring plant RNAs to accumulate in spider mites. After being raised on a variety of plants, the identity of plant RNAs entering mite cells will be determined with high throughput sequencing. Next, synthetic RNAs targeted to essential mite genes modeled from accumulating native plant molecules will be fed to mites and their effects on survival and gene expression investigated. RNAs that successfully modulate genes in mites will be characterized biochemically and in cell culture to understand the mechanism they exploit.

叶螨是世界范围内最具抗药性的农作物害虫。它的捕食者相对较少，很难控制。它的基因组序列最近已经确定，它比它的节肢动物亲戚小得多，但包含了参与RNA干扰（RNAi）的基因的扩大集合，这是一种使用RNA分子打开和关闭基因的途径。该项目将研究这些基因如何在螨以植物为食时摄取小RNA，以及该系统是否可用于控制动物的基因表达。与此项目相关的研究活动将提供生物化学，遗传学和计算生物学的研究生和本科生水平的培训。它将在很大程度上依赖于本科研究人员的参与，无论是在课堂上还是在实验室。该项目的方法涉及探索自然发生的植物RNA在蜘蛛螨中积累的能力。在多种植物上饲养后，将用高通量测序确定进入螨细胞的植物RNA的身份。接下来，将针对从积累的天然植物分子模拟的必需螨基因的合成RNA喂给螨，并研究其对存活和基因表达的影响。成功调节螨类基因的RNA将在生物化学和细胞培养中进行表征，以了解它们利用的机制。