Leaf-to-leaf communication during acclimation to multiple stresses

植物在一个高度动态的环境中生长和繁殖，这种环境可以看到光照强度、温度、湿度或不同病原体和昆虫的存在等条件的突然变化。为了获得最大产量，植株的每片叶子，乃至整个植株都需要迅速适应这些条件，同一株植株内不同叶子的反应必须相互协调。这种协调是由快速信号介导的，这些信号在不同的叶片之间传递，协调它们的个体反应，从而产生同步的整体反应。该项目旨在通过研究同一植物内的不同叶片如何发送和接收信号来协调植物的整体反应，从而破译植物用于协调其对不同胁迫的反应的代码。解开这些机制将使我们能够培育出对不同环境条件具有更高耐受性的更好的植物。这些措施可以减轻每年因环境压力、昆虫和病原体造成的数十亿美元的农业生产损失。培养博士后1名，研究生2名，本科生16名，包括少数民族在内的高中生12名。通过“科学之轮”、“研究与教育伙伴关系”和“榆树叉教育中心”等项目，将为数千名K-12学生以及公众提供基于外展的学习机会。此外，还将制作强调科学对社会重要性的教育视频，并在网上发布。胁迫诱导的系统信号和系统获得性驯化（SAA）在植物对不同环境条件的适应中起着关键作用。迄今为止，大量研究表明，在对单叶（局部组织）施加的特定非生物胁迫的响应中，植物建立了一个特定于胁迫的SAA，包括许多不同的胁迫特异性转录物和代谢物的积累，以及最近显示的协调的胁迫特异性全冠层气孔响应。然而，在自然界和田间条件下，植物同时受到不同的非生物胁迫的组合，这些胁迫可能对植物的生理、代谢和驯化产生相反的影响，这就提出了植物生物学中一个新的基本问题：在胁迫组合中，不同的胁迫特异性系统信号是如何在植物中整合的？本项目的总体假设是，在胁迫组合过程中，在植物的相同或不同部位/组织产生的不同的胁迫特异性系统信号会聚在一起，诱导胁迫组合特有的SAA反应。不同的组学工具将结合计算方法、突变体、生理测量、驯化研究和新型成像技术来检测全植物的系统活性氧（ROS）波，以确定胁迫组合过程中植物中不同胁迫特异性系统信号的整合位点和模式。此外，还将识别和研究胁迫组合过程中参与系统ROS信号传播的不同植物组织、转录调控因子和转录网络，以及参与植物对胁迫组合的SAA响应的植物激素。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

Plants grow and reproduce within a highly dynamic environment that can see abrupt changes in conditions such as light intensity, temperature, humidity, or the presence of different pathogens and insects. To achieve maximal yield, each leaf of the plant, and the plant as a whole, needs to rapidly adjust to these conditions, and the response of each of the different leaves within the same plant must be coordinated with each other. Such coordination is mediated by rapid signals that are transmitted between the different leaves and coordinate their individual responses, resulting in a synchronized overall response. This project aims to decipher the code used by plants to coordinate their response to different stresses, by studying how different leaves within the same plant send and receive signals to orchestrate the overall response of the plant. Unraveling these mechanisms would enable us to breed better plants with heightened tolerance to different environmental conditions. These could mitigate some of the multi-billion dollar losses to agricultural production, inflicted by environmental stresses, insects and pathogens, each year. The project provides training to 1 postdoctoral fellow, 2 graduate students, 16 undergraduates and 12 high school students including minorities. Outreach-based learning opportunities will be offered to thousands of K-12 students, as well as the general public, through programs such as Wheels of Science, Partnership for Research and Education, and the Elm Fork Education Center. In addition, educational videos focusing on the importance of science to our society will be developed and posted online.Stress-induced systemic signaling and systemic acquired acclimation (SAA) play a key role in the acclimation of plants to different environmental conditions. To date, numerous studies have shown that in response to a particular abiotic stress applied to a single leaf (local tissue), plants mount a stress-specific SAA that includes the accumulation of many different stress-specific transcripts and metabolites, as well as more recently shown, a coordinated stress-specific canopy-wide stomatal response. In nature and under field conditions, however, plants are simultaneously subjected to a combination of different abiotic stresses that could have opposing effects on plant physiology, metabolism and acclimation, raising a new fundamental question in plant biology: How are different stress-specific systemic signals integrated in plants during stress combination? The overall hypothesis of this project is that different stress-specific systemic signals, generated at the same or different sites/tissues of the plant during stress combination, converge to induce a SAA response that is unique to the stress combination. Different omics tools in combination with computational methods, mutants, physiological measurements, acclimation studies and novel imaging techniques to detect systemic reactive oxygen species (ROS) waves in whole plants will be used to identify the site(s) and mode of integration of different stress-specific systemic signals in plants during stress combination. In addition, the different plant tissues involved in propagating systemic ROS signals during stress combination, transcriptional regulators and transcriptional networks, as well as plant hormones involved in the SAA response of plants to stress combination, will be identified and studied.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.