NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology: Elucidating the Cellular and Molecular Dynamics behind Nectary Development in Aquilegia

本行动资助2023财年美国国家科学基金会植物基因组生物学博士后研究奖学金。该奖学金支持奖学金获得者在主办实验室的研究和培训计划，该奖学金获得者还提出了扩大生物学参与的计划。龚燕博士的研究和培训计划的题目是“阐明Aquilegia分泌液发育背后的细胞和分子动力学”。该奖学金的主办机构是哈佛大学，赞助科学家是Elena M. Kramer博士。花蜜是开花植物和传粉者之间的中心桥梁。花蜜的消耗和传粉者随后的花粉转移对大多数开花植物的繁殖成功至关重要。近90%的开花植物和76%的国内作物受益于这种植物与传粉者的相互作用。花蜜是由蜜腺产生的，这种特殊的细胞结构被认为已经独立进化了多次。蜜腺的进化极大地促进了遗传多样性，加速了物种形成，并扩大了这些谱系的栖息地。尽管蜜腺在生理、农业和生态方面具有重要意义，但我们对蜜腺发育的了解仅限于开花植物的一小部分。该项目将通过研究Aquilegia基生单花种的花蜜发育背后的遗传控制来解决这一挑战，希望发现可以通过改造的遗传性状来减少作物对单一传粉者的依赖，这是一个因气候变化而恶化的紧迫问题。研究员将从该项目中接受单细胞基因组学、发育和进化生物学方面的培训。为了促进这一主题的科学传播和促进社区参与，研究员将组织一个关于这一主题的小型研讨会，并指导学生进行科学研究。本项目聚焦于生理、农业和生态上重要的植物组织——花蜜，旨在阐明负责花蜜形成和花蜜生产的细胞和分子机制。具体目的是：1)通过单细胞RNA测序分析蜜基因表达网络，阐明水仙花蜜产生和分泌的遗传回路；2)研究不同水仙属植物如何调整花蜜糖成分来吸引不同的传粉者。尖端的功能基因组学方法和比较进化方法的结合不仅将填补我们关于蜜腺发育遗传基础的知识空白，而且还将为蜜腺的进化及其调控网络提供见解。该项目产生的单细胞转录组数据集和植物遗传物质将通过各种社区资源共享网站向公众开放。关键词：蜜腺发育，植物与传粉者相互作用，单细胞RNA测序。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

This action funds an NSF Plant Genome Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2023. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow who also presents a plan to broaden participation in biology. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Dr. Yan Gong is "Elucidating the Cellular and Molecular Dynamics behind Nectary Development in Aquilegia" The host institution for the fellowship is Harvard University, and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Elena M. Kramer.Nectar is a central bridge between flowering plants and pollinators. The consumption of nectar and the subsequent transfer of pollen by pollinators are vital to the reproductive success of most flowering plants. Nearly 90% of all flowering plants and 76% of domestic crops benefit from such plant-pollinator interactions. Nectar is produced by nectaries, specialized cellular structures that are thought to have evolved multiple times independently. The evolution of nectaries significantly boosted genetic diversity, accelerated speciation, and expanded the habitats of these lineages. Despite nectaries' physiological, agricultural, and ecological importance, our understanding of nectary development is limited to a small subset of flowering plants. This project will address this challenge by investigating the genetic control behind nectary development in basal eudicot species of Aquilegia, with the hope of discovering genetic traits that can be engineered to reduce single pollinator dependence in crops, an urgent issue worsened by climate change. The Fellow will receive training in single-cell genomics, development, and evolutionary biology from this project. To facilitate scientific communication on this topic and promote community participation, the Fellow will organize a mini-symposium on this topic and mentor students performing scientific research. This project focuses on physiologically, agriculturally, and ecologically important plant tissue - the nectary - and aims to elucidate the cellular and molecular mechanisms responsible for nectary formation and nectar production. Specific aims are to 1) profile the nectary gene expression network by single-cell RNA sequencing and elucidate the genetic circuits underlying nectar production and secretion in Aquilegia; and 2) examine how different Aquilegia species adjust the nectar sugar composition to attract different pollinators. The combination of cutting-edge functional genomics methods and comparative evo-devo approaches will not only fill the gaps in our knowledge about the genetic basis of nectary development but also offer insights into the evolution of nectaries and their regulatory networks. The single-cell transcriptome datasets and plant genetic material generated from this project will be available to the public through various community resource-sharing websites. Keywords: nectary development, plant-pollinator interactions, single-cell RNA sequencing.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.