Collaborative Research: Multiscale Characterization and Dynamics Modeling of Stomatal Function in Plants

这项资助将支持研究，这将提高我们对气孔功能的理解，气孔是植物叶片表面的微小孔。气孔作为植物与周围环境进行二氧化碳和水蒸气交换的守门人，不仅对植物个体的健康至关重要，而且对整个生态系统的进化具有直接和全球性的影响。然而，目前我们对气孔运动和功能的理解受到传统策略的限制，这些策略仅捕获静态的、平均的和长期的气孔宏观尺度行为。气孔的行为和功能在微观尺度上的定性特征，以及它们与宿主植物的潜在生理过程的关系知之甚少。该奖项支持基础研究，以创建以瞬时气孔运动为中心的多尺度动力学建模框架。这项研究的成功将为气孔研究创造一个独特的，强大的工具，并为监测和控制植物的生理活动创造一个改变游戏规则的传感设备，开辟并实现广泛的基础生物学研究（例如，植物对昆虫攻击的防御机制，植物-环境相互作用）和前沿农业应用（例如，最佳作物生长控制，快速基因型到表型转变）。因此，这项研究的结果将有利于美国社会和经济。跨动态系统建模和诊断，微机电系统和植物生物学研究的多学科性质将有助于吸引和扩大工程和科学领域代表性不足的群体的参与，并对工程和科学教育产生积极影响。气孔运动的多尺度表征和建模可以提供所需的工具，揭示气孔调控中所涉及的内部分子动力学和外部细胞运动之间的缺失环节，以及映射和关联气孔及其下面的遗传根的生物力学演化。然而，建立这样一个建模框架的科学挑战还有待解决。该研究小组将创建一个基于生物化学的多尺度气孔动力学模型，该模型将气孔运动过程中的亚细胞机械演化与微尺度细胞活动联系起来。建模方法将建立在一种新的原子力显微镜技术，以定量映射单气孔运动过程中的纳米力学演变，以及一种小型化传感器来测量气孔运动引起的水蒸气和电势变化。他们还将通过实验，以玉米和拟南芥为例系统，识别、评估和优化气孔动力学模型。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This grant will support research that will improve our understanding of the functions of stomata, the micro-size pores in plant leaf surfaces. As the gatekeeper of carbon dioxide and water vapor exchange between plants and their surrounding environment, stomata are not only crucial to the health of the individual plants, but also have a direct and global impact on the evolution of our entire ecosystem. However, currently our understanding of stomatal movement and function is limited by the conventional strategies that only captured static, averaged, and long-term macro scale behaviors of stomata. Little is known about the qualitative characteristics of stomata behavior and functions at the micro-scale, and their correlation with the underlying physiological processes of the host plant. This award supports fundamental research to create a multiscale dynamics modeling framework centered on instantaneous stomatal movement. Success of this research will create a unique, powerful tool for stomata studies and a game-changing sensing device for monitoring and controlling plants' physiological activities, opening up and enabling a wide-range of fundamental biological research (e.g., defending mechanism of plants against insect attack, plant-environment interaction) and frontier agricultural applications (e.g., optimal crop growth control, rapid genotype to phenotype transition). Thus, results from this research will benefit both the U.S. society and the economy. The multidisciplinary nature of the research across dynamic system modeling and diagnostics, micro-electro-mechanical systems, and plant biology will help to attract and broaden participations of underrepresented groups in engineering and science fields, and positively impact engineering and science education. The multiscale characterization and modeling of stomatal movement can provide the tools needed for revealing the missing links between the internal molecular dynamics and the external cellular movement involved in stomatal regulation, and for mapping and correlating biomechanical evolutions of stomata and their underneath genetic roots. However, scientific challenges are yet to be addressed to establish such a modeling framework. The research team will create a biophysics-based multiscale stomatal dynamics model that links and correlates subcellular mechanical evolutions to microscale cellular activities during stomatal movement. The modeling approach will be built upon a novel atomic force microscope technique to quantitatively map nanomechanical evolutions during single stoma movement, and one-of-a-kind miniaturized sensors to measure the water vapor and electrical potential variations caused by the stomata movements. They will also identify, evaluate, and optimize the stomatal dynamics model through experiments, by using maize and Arabidopsis thaliana as example systems.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.