RESEARCH-PGR: Genome-Wide Dissection of Leaf Angle Variation Across the Canopy in Maize

RESEARCH-PGR：玉米冠层叶角变化的全基因组解析

• 批准号: 2210259
• 负责人: Jianming Yu
• 金额: $ 250万
• 依托单位: Iowa State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2026-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2210259&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RESEARCH; PGR; Genome; Wide; Dissection

Plant architecture is the three-dimensional organization of the plant body. In addition to branching patterns, the size, shape, and position of leaves and flowering organs comprise the above-ground plant architecture. Leaf angle is the angle between the leaf and the plant stem. In cultivated crops where a very large numbers of plants are packed into the field, leaf angle is a key determinant of the overall canopy leaf area, light capture, and yield of a given plant population. Technological advances have made it possible to obtain measurements from field-grown plants in a high-throughput fashion, to conduct tissue-specific gene expression analysis, and to precisely edit genes for functional characterization. To capitalize these exciting advances, an interdisciplinary team was assembled to study leaf angle variation across the canopy in maize, an excellent model crop of economic and societal importance. The long-term goal is to enrich the fundamental understanding of the genetic control of leaf angle variation across the canopy in maize and to provide mechanistic insights into genetic manipulation of plant architecture for continued crop improvement. Integration of research with education within the project will permit cross-training of the next generation of scientists with knowledge of developmental genetics, genomics, biotechnology, breeding, and agricultural engineering. As an excellent entry point to connect biology and agriculture with school gardens and children’s literature, leaf angle will be a key component of a K-12 teacher training certificate workshop that will be developed to help students learn about plant biology, domestication, agriculture, and crop improvement.Leaf angle is a strategic component of plant architecture, and an important area of plant research that interconnects fundamental research on the mechanisms of plant development with plant breeding efforts for sustainable agricultural production. Long-term selection for greater agronomic yield by dense planting has generated superior maize hybrids with upright leaf angle. However, a comprehensive understanding of the genetic mechanisms underlying leaf angle variation is still lacking. Due to the measurement difficulties, leaf angle is typically measured on a single leaf per plant in large-scale genetic studies. But leaf angle variation across the canopy is observed among different leaves of the same plant, and diverse inbreds are polymorphic for this “within-plant, leaf angle variation” phenotype. In this project, genome-wide identification of genes underlying leaf angle variation across the canopy will be conducted using a high throughput phenotyping system (PhenoBot) to quantify multiple leaf angles at different nodes for genetic analyses. Transcriptomic analyses will be conducted through laser-microdissection RNA sequencing to examine genes and pathways underlying leaf angle variation across the canopy. With a list of known genes from the literature and newly identified genes, functional validation and characterization of these genes will be carried out by generating edited maize plants with CRISPR-based tools. Grade-level text sets and accompanying seeds of diverse maize inbreds will be developed for the creation of teaching gardens on school grounds. A certificate program in the form of a workshop will be developed to help K-12 teachers integrate the teaching garden into their curriculum.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.

植物构型是植物体的三维组织。除了分枝模式之外，叶片和开花器官的大小、形状和位置构成了地上植物结构。叶角是叶片和植物茎之间的角度。在栽培作物中，大量的植物被包装到田间，叶角是给定植物种群的总冠层叶面积、光捕获和产量的关键决定因素。技术进步使得以高通量方式从田间种植的植物中获得测量结果、进行组织特异性基因表达分析以及精确编辑基因以进行功能表征成为可能。为了利用这些令人兴奋的进展，一个跨学科的团队被召集起来研究玉米冠层的叶角变化，玉米是一种具有经济和社会重要性的优秀模式作物。长期的目标是丰富的玉米冠层叶角变化的遗传控制的基本理解，并提供机械的见解，遗传操作的植物结构，持续作物改良。该项目内的研究与教育相结合将使下一代科学家能够交叉培训，掌握发育遗传学、基因组学、生物技术、育种和农业工程方面的知识。作为将生物学和农业与学校花园和儿童文学联系起来的绝佳切入点，叶角将成为K-12教师培训证书研讨会的关键组成部分，该研讨会将帮助学生学习植物生物学，驯化，农业和作物改良。叶角是植物结构的战略组成部分，是植物研究的一个重要领域，它将植物发育机制的基础研究与可持续农业生产的植物育种工作联系起来。通过密植进行长期选择以获得更高的农艺产量，产生了具有直立叶角的上级玉米杂交种。然而，叶角变异的遗传机制仍然缺乏全面的了解。由于测量困难，在大规模遗传研究中，通常对每株植物的单个叶片测量叶角。但是，在同一植株的不同叶片之间观察到整个冠层的叶角变化，并且不同的自交系对于这种"植株内，叶角变化"表型是多态的。在本项目中，将使用高通量表型分析系统（PhenoBot）对整个冠层的叶角变异相关基因进行全基因组鉴定，以量化不同节点的多个叶角进行遗传分析。将通过激光显微切割RNA测序进行转录组学分析，以检查整个冠层的叶角变化的基因和途径。根据文献中的已知基因和新鉴定的基因列表，将通过使用基于CRISPR的工具生成编辑的玉米植物来进行这些基因的功能验证和表征。将为在学校场地上建立教学花园编制年级课本和附带的各种玉米自交系种子。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并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。

项目成果

Field‐based robotic leaf angle detection and characterization of maize plants using stereo vision and deep convolutional neural networks

• DOI: 10.1002/rob.22166
• 发表时间: 2023-02
• 期刊: Journal of Field Robotics
• 影响因子: 8.3
• 作者: Lirong Xiang;Jingyao Gai;Yin Bao;Jianming Yu;P. Schnable;Lie Tang