Investigating the role of short RNAs on wood formation cambium development and adaptation of poplar tree (POPsRNA)

短RNA（sRNA）是近年来发现的重要的基因表达调控因子，但其在木材形成中的作用尚不清楚。该提案是一项协同努力，使用基因组工具在全球范围内识别模式树杨树（白杨）基因组中与木材形成相关的sRNAs。白杨是一种经济上重要的非粮食作物，我们建议进行基础研究，以建立知识基础，开发这种作物的潜力。该项目还将在sRNA水平上评估白杨种质的自然变异和生物多样性。该项目将在三个具有不同专业知识的研究团队（木材形成生物学-短RNA-生物信息学）之间产生协同作用，以帮助基于植物基因组学的技术回答生物学问题。

Short RNAs (sRNA) have been recently recognised as important gene expression regulators but little is known about their role in wood formation. This proposal is a concerted effort to use genomic tools to globally identify wood formation-associated sRNAs in the genome of model tree Populus trichocarpa (poplar). Poplar is an economically important non-food crop and we propose fundamental research orientated towards building the knowledge base for exploiting the potentials of this crop. The project will also assess the natural variation and biodiversity of poplar accessions at the sRNA level. The project will create synergies between three research teams with different expertise (biology of wood formation - short RNAs - bioinformatics) in order to help plant genomics-based technologies answer biological questions.