SBIR Phase I: Creating a Master Transformation Recipient Line for Chloroplast Engineering of Maize

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响是开发环境可持续、产量更高、抗虫害的生物技术作物。未来的农作物需要数十种性状才能获得更高的产量，并保护自己免受虫害、疾病和不断变化的环境条件的影响。拟议的技术将使多性状基因工程作物的高效生产，所需性状的更高效率，以及更快的育种和种子生产，以加快分配。与目前的解决方案不同，这项拟议的技术确保了特征不会通过花粉转移到杂草或本地植物物种上。最初的应用是玉米，这是美国最有价值的商业作物，其洞察力预计将促进其他作物的发展。拟议中的项目旨在创建一个用于工程玉米的叶绿体(叶绿体)转化平台。尽管叶绿体工程(转体)技术已经在一些双子叶作物(即烟草、马铃薯)上成功开发，但还没有为任何单子叶作物(即玉米、高粱)开发出可复制的技术。现有证据表明，限速步骤是需要一个强大的选择系统，以便在典型的单子叶植物胚性组织培养系统中鉴定和扩增罕见的转化质体。该项目将创建用于叶绿体工程平台的玉米主转化受体系(MTRL)。MTRL将在叶绿体编码的光合作用基因中包含有针对性的基因组缺失，从而允许开发一种新的选择系统，从而成功地对单子叶作物进行叶绿体工程。最终，相应的野生型叶绿体光合作用基因将与其他所需特性一起被交付给MTRL，促进对已删除的光合作用基因恢复的转化叶绿体的优雅选择，以及携带新的感兴趣的特性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop environmentally sustainable, higher yielding, pest-resistant biotech crops. Crops of the future need dozens of traits to achieve higher yields and protect themselves against insects, pests, diseases and changing environmental conditions. The proposed technology will enable efficient production of crops engineered with multiple trait genes, higher efficacy of the desired traits, and faster breeding and seed production to accelerate distribution. Unlike current solutions, the proposed technology ensures that traits will not be transferred to weeds or native plant species via pollen. The initial application is corn, the most valuable commercial crop in the US, with insights expected to enhance other crops. The proposed project aims to create a chloroplast (plastid) transformation platform for engineering corn. Although chloroplast engineering (transplastomic) technology has been developed successfully in a number of dicot crop species (i.e., tobacco, potato), a reproducible technology has not been developed for any monocot crop (i.e., corn, sorghum). The available evidence indicates that the rate-limiting step is the need for a strong selection system to enable the identification and amplification of rare transformed plastids in the embryogenic tissue culture systems typical for monocots. This project will create a Master Transformation Recipient Line (MTRL) of corn for use in a chloroplast engineering platform. The MTRL will contain a targeted genome deletion in a chloroplast-encoded photosynthetic gene, allowing for development of a new selection system that can lead to successful chloroplast engineering of monocot crops. Ultimately, the corresponding wild-type chloroplast photosynthetic gene will be delivered to the MTRL with other desired traits, facilitating an elegant selection of transformed plastids with the deleted photosynthetic gene restored and as well as carrying the new traits of interest.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.