Coordination Funds

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Food security and healthy food for 11 billion people in 2100 is one of the major challenges of this century. According to the scientific literature, there is no other option than to increase the global yield efficiency and reduce the yield gap to guarantee global food security – given that further land increase for agriculture is not an acceptable alternative. To realize these agricultural goals new understanding in the mechanisms of plant diseases/immunity and new technology discoveries in crop protection are required. Hence, it is the major aim of this initiative to create a vibrant, dynamic and internationally leading collaborative consortium with the common goal of developing a mechanistic understanding of cross-kingdom (ck)RNAi between plant hosts and their interacting microbes. Our central hypothesis is that sRNAs (RNA effectors) have an evolutionarily conserved key role in the establishment and development of pathogenic and mutualistic plant-microbe interactions, and therefore have a high potential for crop plant improvement and more sustainable production. The overall strategic objectives of our initiative are: i. to elucidate the principles and components of ckRNAi in host-microbe interactions; ii. to enable the development of novel strategies for crop plant protection and yield; and iii. to build research capacity in RNA biology together with training the next generation of students in this important research area. Our specific scientific aims are: i. to comparatively reveal the mechanistic role of sRNAs in ckRNAi and their delivery pathways in a variety of agronomically relevant plant-microbe interactions; ii. to comparatively assess the molecular factors required for cross-kingdom transfer of RNAs along the routes between the plant and the microbe in these interactions; and iii. to develop strategies for improving the use of sRNA and dsRNA in controlling plant diseases.