IOS: The Function and Evolution of Plant Phased siRNAs in Signaling Pathways and Microbial Interactions

这项工作的目的是研究植物中一类新的调节性小RNA的功能和进化。先前的工作表明，像那些已知的赋予病原体抗性的植物基因是一组“microRNAs”的目标，microRNAs是一种长度仅为22个核苷酸的抑制性调控RNA。这些microRNAs被认为是编码抗病基因的一个非常大的蛋白质家族的主要调节因子，它们的部分活性是触发额外的小RNA(长度为21个核苷酸)的产生，这些小RNA具有不寻常的、规则间隔的模式，即生物发生的“阶段性”。对这个基因家族的调控，以及其他几个以同样方式被microRNAs靶向的基因，是microRNA功能的新范式。研究人员已经确定，这些小RNA在许多农作物中都是保守的，包括大豆、紫花苜蓿的近亲、番茄和土豆。本项目的目的是研究这种新的基因调控电路，以了解它在植物中的功能，它在植物防御或有益微生物相互作用中的作用，以及它最终是否可以被开发为一种工具，用于改良植物或改变植物与微生物的相互作用，以减少疾病或改善有益相互作用。该项目将利用包括植物基因组学、植物细胞生物学、植物-微生物相互作用和RNA分析在内的方法。预期的结果是对一种新颖而复杂的基因调控机制的剖析和理解。该项目的影响范围更广，从直接参与该项目的学生和博士后培训的地方影响，到该项目将发布的数据库和网络工具对科学界的国家和国际影响。

The goal of this work is to investigate in plants the function and evolution of a novel class of regulatory small RNAs. Prior work demonstrated that plant genes like those known to confer resistance to pathogens are the targets of a set of "microRNAs"--suppressive regulatory RNAs just 22 nucleotides in length. These microRNAs are believed to function as master regulators of a very large family of protein coding disease-resistance genes, and part of their activity is to trigger the production of additional small RNAs (21 nucleotides in length) that have an unusual, regularly spaced pattern, or "phasing" of biogenesis. The regulation of this gene family, and several others targeted by microRNAs in the same way, is a new paradigm for microRNA function. The investigators have identified these small RNAs as conserved in many crop plants, including soybean, an alfalfa relative, tomato and potato. The aim of this project is to investigate this novel gene regulatory circuit to understand its function in plants, its role in plant defenses or beneficial microbial interactions, and whether it can ultimately be developed as a tool for improving plants or altering plant-microbe interactions to reduce disease or improve beneficial interactions. The project will utilize methods that include plant genomics, plant cell biology, plant-microbial interactions, and RNA analysis. The expected result is the dissection and understanding of a novel and complex gene regulatory mechanism. The broader impacts of the project range from a local impact on the training of students and a post-doc who will be directly involved in the project, to national and international impact to the scientific community in the databases and web tools that the project will release.