16 ERA-CAPS. MURINAS_Mechano-purino signalling in abiotic stress

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To survive, plants must maintain an upright stem in the face of wind, while their roots must forage for water and nutrients despite soil hardness and compaction. Wind induces adaptive structural changes in stems, including tissue thickening. Roots penetrate hard substrate and modify their growth and shape as obstacles are sensed. Despite this adaptive capacity, mechanical stresses account for approximately 10% of annual European crop yield loss from wind lodging and 10-50% yield loss can arise from soil compaction. Discovering how plants sense and respond to mechanical stress could help in breeding better adapted crops. A protein has been identified in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana that could sense mechanical stress in the plant cell wall and send a message to the cell to adapt. This protein (DORN1) sends its message by activating the movement of calcium into the cell and the increase of calcium acts as the signal to adapt. The objective of this project is to identify the proteins that enable calcium entry into the cell downstream of DORN1. The results obtained in Arabidopsis could be transferred to crops in the medium to long term. This innovation in understanding how these walled organisms cope with the mechanical stresses they face will provide a platform to improve crop lodging and root growth in line with trans-national strategic aims for agriculture.