EAGER: Plant membrane on-a-chip for the genome wide studies of plant transport processes

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Plant cells are surrounded by the plasma membrane that forms cellular boundaries and helps to maintain chemically distinct environments within and outside the cell. Membrane-based compartmentation allows different processes to occur simultaneously in different parts of the cell and in accordance with plant needs. These cellular processes ensure plant growth, development and response to environmental stresses and largely depend on ions and organic molecules redistribution across membranes. Most nutrients and metabolites cannot freely cross the membrane, so specific proteins, known as channels, pumps, and cotransporters, are embedded in plant membranes for this purpose. As scientists strive to understand how plants adapt to extreme weather conditions, pathogen pressures, and pollution, uncovering how these transport systems operate is important for devising sustainable approaches for improving crop yield and promoting flourishing ecosystems. In this project, a device is proposed that can take samples of plant cell membranes with embedded transport systems to test their response and properties to various conditions of interest. The device consists of a transparent, conductive plastic surface that measures the material that crosses the plant cell membrane in a highly controlled manner, allowing scientists to probe, and later connect, the responses of transport systems with the plant from which it was derived and the conditions under which that plant was grown. This project will also foster high school student excitement about career choices in agriculture and life science industries that involve biotechnology and applications in plants, food, and farming through Cornell’s WOMEN event.Monitoring the flux of solutes and ions across plant cell membranes through ion channels and transporters embedded within them, is a significant challenge today, but is fundamental for assigning function to unknown transporter genes, tackling transporter substrate specificities and mode of regulation, linking metabolic pathways to cellular compartments, plant growth and development, and bridging the genotype to phenotype gap. Today's technologies are inadequate for a number of reasons, including low throughput and lack of sensitivity, especially for transporters, which have fluxes several orders of magnitude lower than ion channels. Here, a new technology is proposed that combines planar plant membranes, microfluidic environmental control, and a transparent, electrically conducting polymer, comprising a “plant membrane bioelectronic device.” This device is capable of dual-mode (optical or electrical) measurement of transporter function. This new kind of sensor device can be highly multiplexed for collection of large data sets on plant transporter systems in a way that has not been possible before. Such large data sets feed into big data science approaches for enabling discoveries and breakthroughs in our understanding of how plants adapt to genetic perturbations, extreme weather conditions, pathogen pressures, and other critical aspects important for improving crop yield and promoting flourishing ecosystems. This project will also foster the next generation of high school students becoming excited about career choices in agriculture and life science industries that involve biotechnology and applications in plants, food, and farming through ongoing outreach activities that engage K-12 girls and their parents through Cornell’s WOMEN event.This award was co-funded by the Plant Genome Research Program and the Physiological Mechanisms and Biomechanics Program.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.