Guard cell wall epitope patterns and stomatal function

保卫细胞壁表位模式和气孔功能

• 批准号: 1808158
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Sheffield
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2016 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-1808158
• 关键词: Guard; cell; wall; epitope; patterns

Water use efficiency is an important determinant of crop yield, particularly in drought prone countries. Water is lost from plants through the stomata, microscopic pores in the epidermal surface of the leaf, which are flanked by two specialised guard cells. The guard cells expand to open the stomatal pore through which gases enter and leave the plant, and consequently water is also lost. The guard cells must be highly flexible yet strong to allow for stomatal opening and closure. These structural properties are thought to be due to the specialised guard cell wall, which is known to be enriched in polysaccharides which confer strength and flexibility. In this project I am aiming to use molecular and imaging techniques to identify the structural and mechanical properties of the Arabidopsis guard cell walls and the genes responsible for these phenotypes. This will allow for the creation of mutant lines which are deficient in these identified genes, which can then be tested for whole plant physiological traits such as gas exchange. Previous work on guard cell wall mechanics has all been carried out in Arabidopsis, so the next stage of the project is to collate this data and investigate guard cell walls in a crop species. Immunolabelling techniques will help to determine whether Arabidopsis and grass guard cells show similar structural properties and functional analysis will show whether grass guard cell walls display genes homologous to Arabidopsis guard cell wall genes. Mutant lines can be created to investigate the effects of selected genes upon the guard cells and subsequent whole plant physiological traits.Overall this project aims to transfer our current knowledge of guard cell walls into a crop species. Previous work has shown that the manipulation of guard cell wall genes in Arabidopsis can alter the movement of the guard cells, and this may also be true of grasses. In the future this may have the potential to improve plant growth under the predicted climatic conditions of elevated CO2 and reduced water availability.

水分利用效率是作物产量的重要决定因素，特别是在干旱国家。植物中的水分通过气孔（叶子表皮表面的微小孔）流失，气孔两侧是两个专门的保卫细胞。保卫细胞扩张以打开气孔，气体通过气孔进入和离开植物，因此水也损失掉。保卫细胞必须高度灵活且坚固，以允许气孔打开和关闭。这些结构特性被认为是由于特殊的保卫细胞壁，众所周知，该壁富含多糖，可赋予强度和柔韧性。在这个项目中，我的目标是使用分子和成像技术来识别拟南芥保卫细胞壁的结构和机械特性以及负责这些表型的基因。这将允许创建缺乏这些已识别基因的突变系，然后可以测试整个植物的生理特征，例如气体交换。之前有关保卫细胞壁力学的工作都是在拟南芥中进行的，因此该项目的下一阶段是整理这些数据并研究作物物种的保卫细胞壁。免疫标记技术将有助于确定拟南芥和草保卫细胞是否表现出相似的结构特性，功能分析将表明草保卫细胞壁是否显示与拟南芥保卫细胞壁基因同源的基因。可以创建突变系来研究所选基因对保卫细胞和随后的整个植物生理特征的影响。总体而言，该项目旨在将我们目前对保卫细胞壁的知识转移到作物物种中。先前的工作表明，操纵拟南芥中的保卫细胞壁基因可以改变保卫细胞的运动，对于禾本科植物来说可能也是如此。未来，在预计的二氧化碳浓度升高和可用水量减少的气候条件下，这可能有改善植物生长的潜力。