Collaborative Research: Spatiotemporal Regulation of the Ethylene Signaling Network and Rapid Adaptive Responses in Plants

该项目的目标是更好地了解植物在压力下通常产生的气态植物激素乙烯如何调节对各种环境输入的适应，如干旱、低温、盐度、洪水和营养缺乏。所有这些胁迫通常都会影响植物的生长和繁殖，最终威胁到全球粮食安全。植物通过改变生理过程来对这些胁迫做出适应性反应，而植物激素如乙烯在其中起着关键作用。该项目不仅将揭示乙烯在植物适应性反应中的作用，潜在地有助于改善可持续农业和粮食安全，还将为一名博士后科学家和两名研究生提供研究培训。项目负责人还将通过暑期实习机会和其他本科生研究活动来指导本科生。此外，该项目将向普通公众提供外展活动，重点是当地高中生，让他们体验个人实验室练习和研究演示。植物对环境的快速适应是植物生存的关键特征，由植物通过调节细胞动力学改变生长模式的速度来调节。然而，人们对适应性反应的基本方面知之甚少，例如反应动力学以及这些动力学与细胞事件的相关性。本研究的目的是利用乙烯调控的暗生长幼苗作为模式系统来填补这一知识空白。植物激素乙烯除了在植物生长发育中起着众所周知的作用外，还在植物适应中起着关键作用。此外，黑暗生长的幼苗提供了一个很好的模型系统来研究植物适应，因为乙烯诱导的变化很容易触发和检测，而且信号通路已经得到了很好的描述。此外，一些研究表明，暗生长的幼苗对乙烯的响应是可逆的生长动力学，受到乙烯信号分子的时空调控。这为研究适应性反应动力学与指导这一变化的改变的细胞动力学之间的相关性提供了一个独特的机会。为了实现这些研究目标，研究人员将使用细胞生物学方法来确定响应乙烯的中央乙烯信号分子的运动动力学，并使用高分辨率、时间推移成像分析来确定其与暗生长幼苗生长动力学的关系。此外，他们还将测试一种假设，即一种名为构成三重反应1(CTR1)的类似RAF的蛋白激酶，它是乙烯信号的负调控因子，在快速重置乙烯反应，导致乙烯处理后暗生长幼苗更快恢复生长方面发挥关键作用。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The goal of this project is to better understand how the gaseous plant hormone ethylene, commonly produced when plants are under stress, acts to regulate adaptation to various environmental inputs such as drought, chilling, salinity, flooding and nutrient deficiency. All of these stresses commonly affect the growth and reproduction of plants, ultimately threatening global food security. Plants undergo adaptive responses to these stresses by modifying physiological processes in which plant hormones such as ethylene play a pivotal role. This project will not only uncover the role of ethylene in plant adaptive response, potentially contributing to improving sustainable agriculture and food security, it will also provide research training for one postdoctoral scientist and two graduate students. The project leaders will also mentor undergraduate students through summer internship opportunities as well as other undergraduate research activities. In addition, the project will provide outreach activities to the general public, focusing on local high school students by allowing them to experience personal laboratory exercises and research presentations.Rapid adaptation of plants to their surroundings is a critical trait for the survival of the plant and is regulated by how fast plants alter their growth patterns by modulating cellular dynamics. However, little is known about the fundamental aspects of adaptive responses such as response kinetics and the correlation of these kinetics with cellular events. The goal of this research is to fill this knowledge gap by utilizing ethylene-regulated dark-grown seedlings as a model system. The plant hormone ethylene plays a key role in plant adaptation, in addition to its well-known function in plant growth and development. Furthermore, dark-grown seedlings provide an excellent model system to study plant adaptation, as ethylene-induced changes are easy to trigger and to assay and the signaling pathway has been well characterized. Moreover, several studies indicate that the reversible growth kinetics of dark-grown seedlings in response to ethylene is closely regulated by the spatiotemporal regulation of ethylene signaling molecules. This provides a unique opportunity to study the correlation between adaptive response kinetics with the altered cellular dynamics directing this change. In order to accomplish these research goals, the investigators will determine the movement kinetics of the central ethylene signaling molecules in response to ethylene using cell biology approaches and its relation to the growth kinetics of dark-grown seedlings using high-resolution, time-lapse imaging analysis. In addition, they will test the hypothesis that a RAF-like protein kinase called Constitutive Triple Response 1 (CTR1), a negative regulator of ethylene signaling, plays a key role in a rapid resetting of the ethylene response, leading to faster growth recovery of dark-grown seedlings after ethylene treatment.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.