CAREER: Decoding differential protein phosphorylation patterns at the nexus between biotic and abiotic stress responses

粮食稳定对社会稳定至关重要，为了成功地满足预计的全球粮食需求，将需要增加作物产量。减少病虫害造成的作物损失对这一努力至关重要，环境压力加剧了这一挑战。维持安全的粮食供应将需要采取综合办法，战略性和强有力地增强作物抗性将发挥重要作用。为了满足持久提高植物对害虫和病原体抗性的社会需求，该项目将有助于我们（1）对控制作物物种抗病性的保守调控机制的基本知识，以及对这些过程如何影响作物对其他环境胁迫的反应的理解。为了增加科学的可及性更大的社区，研究活动与旨在满足第一代大学转学生的需求，并促进在植物科学和生物学的机会周围的认识和兴奋广泛的教育计划相结合。该计划包括：（1）创建转学生研究机会和方向（ROOTS）计划，通过培训他们基本的实验室技术并将他们与研究实验室职位联系起来，（2）扩大研究综合本科生实验室课程，以积极吸引学生参与可持续研究，以及（3）与当地社区领袖合作，支持一所小学的社区花园开展以植物为基础的教育活动。从表面上看，模式触发免疫看似简单：模式识别受体识别外来分子，激活信号传导，调节转录，诱导免疫反应。事实上，信号网络是非常复杂的，具有动态互连的调节层，导致植物细胞过程的广泛重新配置。了解植物免疫组分的这种动态调节如何发生并与其他信号通路交叉，对于制定增强生物抗性的策略至关重要。此外，从模式植物到作物物种的策略转移产生了额外的复杂性，因为并非所有的调控机制都是保守的，特别是在双子叶植物和单子叶植物物种之间。为了应对这些挑战，在玉米和拟南芥中进行免疫信号传导的早期调节剂的筛选，鉴定了两种保守的核酸结合蛋白，其作为具有磷酸化介导的功能转换的生物和非生物胁迫的双功能调节剂。通过应用于玉米和拟南芥的综合生化和遗传方法，这些见解将被用来定义这些新发现的蛋白质调节生物和非生物胁迫的全球机制，测试针对性增强抗性的策略，并扩展磷酸化依赖性免疫调节因子的注释。完成后，这项工作将有助于对重新配置表型的免疫信号传导的分层机制的基础理解，并阐明提高植物抗性的靶向策略。这些活动也将支持长期的研究与教育和推广相结合，通过提供机会和提高对植物生物学的认识来加强科学和更大的社区。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得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来支持的。

Food stability is essential to societal stability, and to successfully provide for projected global food demands, increased crop production will be required. Reduction of crop losses to disease and pests is critical to this effort, with the challenge potentiated by environmental stresses. Sustaining a secure food supply will require integrated approaches, with strategic and robust enhancement of crop plant resistance playing an important role. To address this societal need of durable improvement of plant resistance to pests and pathogens this project will contribute to our (1) fundamental knowledge of conserved regulatory mechanisms controlling disease resistance across crop species, and an understanding of how these processes impact crop responses to other environmental stresses. To increase scientific accessibility to the larger community, research activities are integrated with an extensive educational plan designed to meet the needs of first-generation college transfer students and to promote awareness and excitement surrounding opportunities in the plant sciences and biology. This plan includes (1) Creation of the Research Opportunities and Orientation for Transfer Students (ROOTS) program to enhance transfer student retention in the sciences by training them in basic laboratory techniques and connecting them with research lab positions, (2) Expansion of a research-integrated undergraduate laboratory course to actively engage students in publishable research and (3) Partnership with a local community leader to support an elementary school community garden with plant-based educational enrichment activities.On the surface, pattern-triggered immunity is deceptively simple: recognition of foreign molecules by pattern recognition receptors activates signaling to modulate transcription and induce immune responses. In reality, the signaling network is exceedingly complex, with dynamic interconnected regulatory layers that cause broad reconfiguration of plant cellular processes. Understanding how this dynamic regulation of plant immune components occurs and intersects with other signaling pathways is essential for formulating strategies to enhance biotic resistance. Furthermore, transfer of strategies from model plants to crop species generates an additional layer of complexity, as not all regulatory mechanisms are conserved, particularly between dicot and monocot species. To meet these challenges, a screen for early regulators of immune signaling in both maize and Arabidopsis was performed, identifying two conserved nucleic acid-binding proteins serving as bifunctional regulators of biotic and abiotic stresses with phosphorylation-mediated functional switching. Through integrated biochemical and genetic approaches applied to both maize and Arabidopsis, these insights will be leveraged to define global mechanisms by which these newly discovered proteins modulate biotic and abiotic stresses, test strategies for targeted enhancement of resistance, and expand annotation of phosphorylation-dependent immunoregulators. Upon completion, this work will contribute to foundational understanding of layered mechanisms of immune signaling that reconfigure phenotypes, and illuminate targeted strategies for improving plant resistance. These activities will also support long-term integration of research with education and outreach, strengthening the scientific and larger community by providing opportunity and increasing awareness of plant biology.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.