NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2019: Transcriptional Regulation and Evolution of the Maize Tapetum

2019 财年 NSF 生物学博士后奖学金：玉米绒毡层的转录调控和进化

• 批准号: 1907220
• 负责人: Daniel Marchant
• 金额: $ 21.6万
• 依托单位: Marchant Daniel B
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-07-01 至 2023-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1907220&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Postdoctoral; Fellowship; Biology; FY

This action funds an NSF National Plant Genome Initiative Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2019. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow who also presents a plan to broaden participation in biology. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Dr. Daniel Blaine Marchant is "Transcriptional Regulation and Evolution of the Maize Tapetum". The host institution for the fellowship is Stanford University and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Virginia Walbot.Understanding anther development is fundamental to plant biology from both applied and basic science perspectives. As the source of pollen and male gametes, anthers are a key variable in controlled crop breeding and hybrid seed production. As of yet, the cues and pathways that permit the alternation from a non-reproductive somatic cell to a reproductive germinal cell in plants are poorly understood. The overarching goal of the research is to use maize anthers and state-of-the-art technologies and genetic resources to address questions and provide new insights into the cellular and genetic regulation of anther development and flowering plant reproduction through evolution. Maize is the ideal primary system for this study because each maize plant has separate male and female organ systems, hundreds of developmentally synchronous anthers per plant, and there exists a large collection of male-sterile and female-fertile mutants. Broader impacts include expanding the organismal and evolutionary knowledge base of plant scientists by training and mentoring of students and by building a "Plant Model Systems Living Collection" in which specimens of the most widely used plant genomics model systems will be housed and maintained at Stanford University. Public access will be enhanced by the availability of learning resources such as web-based manuals providing information on the propagation, natural history and evolution, and anatomy of each species as well as on methods routinely used in plant research such as tissue culture and DNA/RNA extraction. Training objectives include acquiring expertise with new transcriptomic and genomics methods, and bioinformatics tools. The de novo differentiation and development of somatic cells into reproductive germ cells is of the upmost importance for plant reproduction as plants do not have established germlines unlike sexual animals. Understanding the genetic cues of the cell layers that regulate sporogenesis in anthers is therefore fundamental to plant biology, but also to agriculture because controlled pollen production underlies hybrid seed production of most crops. Next-generation sequencing and micro-scale RNA isolation have completely altered our knowledge of how anther cell layers differentiate in preparation for meiosis and the cues by which these processes are regulated. This study will expand upon those studies, delving further into the genetic regulation and hierarchies of the cell layers throughout anther sporogenesis with a focus on the tapetum, the cell layer surrounding the germinal cells. State of the art techniques and resources will be implemented to analyze this specific cell layer first in maize, then in taxa across vascular plants. Specific aims include: 1) identifying tapetum-specific and differentially expressed genes and transcription factors across development in wildtype and tapetum-related male-sterile genotypes; 2) developing and implementing two new protocols for investigating the tapetum at the single cell scale to address questions regarding cellular synchroneity within an anther, the precise developmental stages of the tapetum, and sub-cellular localization of transcripts in a comparative techniques framework; and, 3) providing new insights into the evolutionary conservation of the tapetum genetic hierarchy and tapetum-specific genes across vascular plants. The results of this research will be disseminated at the annual International Plant and Animal Genome (PAG) and Maize Genetics Conferences, and through publications in high profile scientific journals. Sequence data will be made publicly available through the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) and through Gramene and MaizeGDB. In addition, the learning resources produced for the "Plant Model Systems Living Collection" will be available online through the Stanford Biology Department website.Keywords: anthers, maize, tapetum, development, meiosis, pollen, sporogenesis, evolutionThis 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.

该行动为2019财年的生物学博士研究金提供了NSF国家植物基因组倡议。该奖学金支持该研究员的主机实验室的研究和培训计划，该研究员还提出了扩大生物学参与计划的计划。丹尼尔·布莱恩·班特（Daniel Blaine Marchant）博士的这项奖学金的研究和培训计划的标题是“玉米tapeTum的转录法规和演变”。奖学金的主持机构是斯坦福大学，赞助科学家是弗吉尼亚·沃尔伯特（Virginia Walbot）博士。理解花药的发展是从应用和基础科学的角度来看，对植物生物学至关重要。作为花粉和男配子的来源，花药是受控农作物育种和杂种种子生产的关键变量。到目前为止，允许从非生殖体细胞到植物中生殖生发细胞的交替交替的提示和途径知之甚少。该研究的总体目标是使用玉米花药和最先进的技术和遗传资源来解决问题，并通过进化来解决花药发展和开花植物繁殖的细胞和遗传调节的新见解。玉米是这项研究的理想主要系统，因为每种玉米植物都有单独的雄性和女性器官系统，每植物中有数百种发育同步花药，并且存在大量的雄性和雌性毛虫突变体。 更广泛的影响包括通过培训和指导学生的培训和指导来扩大植物科学家的生物和进化知识基础，并建立“植物模型系统生活收集”，其中使用最广泛使用的植物基因组学模型系统的标本将在斯坦福大学安置和维护。通过学习资源（例如基于Web的手册）提供有关每个物种的传播，自然史和进化以及解剖学以及通常用于植物研究（例如组织培养和DNA/RNA提取）通常使用的方法的信息，将增强公共访问。 培训目标包括使用新的转录组和基因组学方法以及生物信息学工具获取专业知识。从头分化和向生殖生殖细胞中体细胞的发展对于植物繁殖至关重要，因为植物没有与性动物不同的生殖。因此，了解调节花药中孢子形成的细胞层的遗传提示对于植物生物学是至关重要的，也是农业的基础，因为受控的花粉产生是大多数农作物的混合种子产量的基础。下一代测序和微尺度RNA隔离已经完全改变了我们对花药细胞层如何分化减数分裂以及调节这些过程的提示的知识。这项研究将扩展到这些研究，进一步研究整个花药孢子形成的细胞层的遗传调节和等级，重点是tapeTum，tapeTum是生发细胞周围的细胞层。将实施最先进的技术和资源，以首先在玉米中分析该特定的细胞层，然后在跨血管植物的分类单元中进行分析。具体目的包括：1）在野生型和tape虫相关的雄性 - 微分基因型中，识别特异性和差异表达的基因和差异表达的基因以及转录因子； 2）开发和实施两个新方案，用于在单细胞量表上调查tapeTum，以解决有关花药内细胞同步性的问题，tapeTum的确切发育阶段以及比较技术中转录本的细胞细胞定位； 3）提供有关跨血管植物的tapetum遗传层次结构和tapetum特异性基因的进化保守性的新见解。这项研究的结果将在年度国际植物和动物基因组（PAG）和玉米遗传学会议上传播，并通过知名科学期刊的出版物进行。序列数据将通过NCBI序列读取存档（SRA）以及Gramene和MaizeGDB公开获得。此外，为“植物模型系统生活收集”生产的学习资源将通过斯坦福生物学系网​​站在线获得：钥匙词：花药，玉米，玉米饼，开发，发展，减数分裂，花粉，孢子形成，进化论，这一奖项反映了NSF的立法任务，并通过基金会的知识效果和宽广的范围来评估NSF的立法任务，并且值得通过评估来进行评估。