How stalk cells provide for salt bladder-based salinity tolerance to quinoa.

藜麦作为一种新兴的国际作物，在加强全球粮食安全方面具有巨大的潜力。藜麦和大部分盐生植物一样，利用所谓的膀胱细胞来排出多余的盐分。这些叶片结构是由特化的毛状体组成的，毛状体由表皮细胞、茎细胞和膀胱细胞组成。通过分子和生物物理分析，我们首次了解了介导盐进入膀胱细胞的转运体。膀胱从叶片输入的钠、氯和代谢物需要穿梭于茎细胞之间。因此，茎细胞作为选择性过滤器和通量控制器工作。在本项目中，我们将通过研究藜麦茎秆细胞的转运生物学，了解藜麦基于盐囊的耐盐性，为培育耐盐作物品种提供知识。

As an emerging international crop, the halophyte Chenopodium quinoa has great potential to enhance global food security. Quinoa, like a large fraction of halophytes, use so-called bladder cells to dump excess salt. These leaf structures are formed by specialized trichomes consisting of an epidermis cell, a stalk cell and the bladder cell. Through molecular and biophysical analyses, we have gained first insights on the transporters that mediate salt import in to the bladder cell. Sodium, chloride and metabolites, which the bladder imports from the leaf, need to be shuttled across the stalk cell. The stalk cell thus operates as a selectivity filter and flux controller. In this project, we will examine the transport biology of stalk cells to understand salt bladder-based salt tolerance in the pseudo-cereal crop plant quinoa, to provide knowledge for breeding crop varieties equipped to tolerate soil salinity.