Studying herbicide modes of action and detoxification using Marchantia polymorpha

世界各地的农作物产量受到杂草的威胁，杂草与农作物争夺光、水和土壤养分等资源。使用除草剂除草是防止杂草造成毁灭性农作物损失的最有效方式。目前，农民依靠少量的除草剂来控制杂草，但对这些除草剂的过度依赖导致了抗除草剂杂草的进化，这些杂草可以在除草剂处理后存活下来。需要新的除草剂以不同的方式杀死杂草，以根除这些抗药性杂草并防止它们蔓延。新除草剂的一个潜在来源是生物体为自身利益杀死植物而自然产生的产品。例如，紫杉素A是一种杀死植物的天然产品，是由以马铃薯植物为食的细菌产生的。我们不知道红霉素A是如何起作用的，但我们知道它可以杀死植物，因此可以作为设计新除草剂的基础。该项目旨在确定红霉素A是如何利用陆地植物地钱杀死植物的。对紫杉素A作用原理的了解可用于设计新的除草剂，这些除草剂的作用方式与紫杉素A相同，但在环境中生产成本更低，在环境中使用也更安全。然而，找到新的除草剂并不能完全解决除草剂抗药性的问题：一些杂草甚至对新除草剂具有抗药性，因为它们可以通过一种称为解毒的过程将不同类型的除草剂分解成无害的产品。本项目还旨在了解紫杉素A在多形根结线虫中解毒的遗传基础，以便能够在田间检测到可以解毒除草剂的杂草，并更好地了解如何根除它们。拟议的研究涉及BBSRC可持续提高农业生产的优先事项以及全球粮食安全的跨理事会优先事项。

Crop yields worldwide are threatened by weeds which compete with crops for resources such as light, water, and soil nutrients. Using herbicides to kill weeds is the most effective manner of preventing weeds from causing devastating crop losses. Currently, farmers rely on a small number of herbicides to keep weeds in check, but overreliance on these herbicides has led to the evolution of herbicide resistant weeds which can survive herbicide treatments. New herbicides which kill weeds in different ways are needed to eradicate these resistant weeds and prevent them from spreading. One potential source of new herbicides are products produced naturally by organisms which kill plants for their own benefit. For example, thaxtomin A is a natural product which kills plants and is produced by bacteria which feed on potato plants. We do not know how thaxtomin A works, but we know it can kill plants and therefore could be used as a basis to design new herbicides. This project aims to determine how thaxtomin A kills plants using the land plant Marchantia polymorpha. Knowledge of how thaxtomin A works can be used to design new herbicides which work in the same way but which are cheaper to produce and safer to use in the environment than thaxtomin A. However, finding new herbicides will not completely solve the problem of herbicide resistant weeds: some weeds are resistant even to new herbicides because they can break down different types of herbicides to harmless products by a process known as detoxification. This project also aims to understand the genetic basis of thaxtomin A detoxification in M. polymorpha in order to be able to detect weeds which can detoxify herbicides in the field and to better understand how to eradicate them. The proposed research addresses the BBSRC priority of sustainably enhancing agricultural production as well as the cross-council priority of global food security.