SBIR Phase II: Engineering broad-spectrum disease resistance in soybean without fitness cost

SBIR 第二阶段：在不增加适应性成本的情况下改造大豆的广谱抗病性

• 批准号: 2132421
• 负责人: George Greene
• 金额: $ 99.46万
• 依托单位: UPSTREAM BIOTECHNOLOGY, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-04-15 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2132421&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Engineering; broad

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is the development of a novel genetic trait that allows plants to rapidly respond to attacking pathogens. Despite modern agricultural practices and chemistry improvements, almost 40% of all crop production is lost due to pests and pathogens each year; within the U.S. over 25% of soybean production is lost this way. These losses are even more severe in regions where pesticide application is prohibitively expensive for farmers. This project develops a new technology for use in soybean and other oilseed crops to protect against plant disease.The proposed project will develop a broad-spectrum pathogen resistance trait. While the first generation of transgenic trait technologies conferring herbicide tolerance and insecticidal traits have been readily established for oilseed production across North and South America, further development has faltered due to the complexity of these plant traits. Unfortunately, the proteins that provide the best tolerance to adverse environmental conditions also result in toxic side-effects when produced in healthy plants; consequently, the utility of developing these proteins is limited. Current methods for regulating expression of resistance proteins introduced into plants through genetic engineering are insufficient to regulate toxic proteins/compounds that may have side-effects in other environmental conditions. The proposed project will demonstrate an expression system that responds to signals, common to both bacterial and fungal pathogens, in the early and late stages of the plant immune response to release the production of anti-microbial proteins only in when needed, effectively eliminating the off-target side-effects. The project objectives are to 1) perform field and greenhouse trial of soybean with this technology to ascertain extent of pathogen resistance and yield effects in infected and healthy conditions; 2) optimize the technology for tissue specific (i.e., roots vs. leaves) use in soybean; 3) conduct greenhouse experiments to determine response to pathogen detection in canola, cotton, and potato as candidates for future field trials and commercialization.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.

这一小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目的更广泛影响是开发了一种新的基因特征，使植物能够对攻击病原体做出快速反应。尽管现代农业实践和化学技术不断改进，每年仍有近40%的作物产量因虫害和病原体而损失；在美国，超过25%的大豆产量以这种方式损失。在农民使用杀虫剂成本高得令人望而却步的地区，这些损失更加严重。该项目开发了一种用于大豆和其他油料作物以防止植物病害的新技术。拟议中的项目将开发一种广谱抗病特性。虽然第一代转基因抗除草剂和杀虫性状技术已经在北美和南美洲的油料种子生产中轻易建立起来，但由于这些植物性状的复杂性，进一步的发展一直步履蹒跚。不幸的是，对恶劣环境条件提供最好耐受性的蛋白质在健康的植物中产生时也会导致毒副作用；因此，开发这些蛋白质的用途有限。目前通过基因工程调控植物抗性蛋白表达的方法不足以调控在其他环境条件下可能产生副作用的有毒蛋白/化合物。拟议的项目将展示一种表达系统，该系统在植物免疫反应的早期和后期对细菌和真菌病原体常见的信号做出反应，仅在需要时才释放抗微生物蛋白的产生，有效地消除非靶标副作用。该项目的目标是1)利用这项技术进行大豆的田间和温室试验，以确定在感染和健康条件下的病原菌抗性程度和产量影响；2)优化大豆组织特异性(即根与叶)使用的技术；3)进行温室实验，以确定作为未来田间试验和商业化候选者的油菜籽、棉花和土豆对病原体检测的响应。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。