Dissecting seed genetic networks through the evolution of plant life-cycle transitions

通过植物生命周期转变的进化剖析种子遗传网络

• 批准号: 2430208
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2430208
• 关键词: Dissecting; seed; genetic; networks; through

The modern biosphere is dominated by plants that reproduce using seeds, which are critical to human agriculture and nutrition. Seeds are a relatively recent evolutionary innovation, arising in a single plant group (the seed-bearing plants) from an ancestral spore-based reproductive mechanism still present in living seedless plants (e.g. mosses, liverworts, ferns). How this dramatic change in plant development occurred is presently unknown and identifying genetic changes associated with it will substantially advance our fundamental understanding of how novel innovations in plant form can arise and improve our knowledge of the functions of economically-valuable genetic networks in modern seeds. This project aims to determine from where in seedless plant development seed genetic networks first arose. We will focus on a single candidate gene family; SPOROCYTLESS (SPL). SPL is a crucial regulator of seed development in flowering plants but is also found in species that do not make seeds. However, its function in seedless plant lineages is currently unknown. Mapping SPL expression and function before the evolution of seeds can therefore tell us about how plant seeds evolved.We will use a reverse genetics approach to compare the function and expression of the SPL gene family between the seed-bearing genetic model Arabidopsis thaliana, the model moss Physcomitrium patens (representing early diverging land plants) and the newly-established fern genetic model Ceratopteris richardii (belonging to the closest seedless relatives of the seed-bearing plants).. Analytical techniques will include functional knockout and ectopic expression of native homologs in seedless plants, , use of fluorescent reporters to map seedless gene expression and functional complementation between the three plant lineages.

现代生物圈由使用种子繁殖的植物主导，这对人类农业和营养至关重要。种子是一个相对较新的进化创新，出现在一个单一的植物群体（种子植物）从一个祖先孢子为基础的生殖机制仍然存在于生活无籽植物（如苔藓，地钱，蕨类植物）。植物发育中的这种戏剧性变化是如何发生的，目前尚不清楚，识别与之相关的遗传变化将大大促进我们对植物形态中新的创新如何产生的基本理解，并提高我们对现代种子中具有经济价值的遗传网络功能的认识。该项目旨在确定在无籽植物发育中种子遗传网络首先出现的位置。我们将集中在一个单一的候选基因家族;无孢子细胞（SPL）。SPL是显花植物种子发育的重要调节因子，但也存在于不产生种子的物种中。然而，其在无核植物谱系中的功能目前尚不清楚。因此，在种子进化之前绘制SPL表达和功能图可以告诉我们植物种子是如何进化的。我们将使用反向遗传学方法比较种子遗传模型拟南芥、模式藓立碗藓（代表早期分化的陆生植物）和新近建立的蕨类植物遗传模式Ceratopteris richardii（属于与种子植物最近的无籽亲戚）。分析技术将包括无核植物中天然同源物的功能敲除和异位表达，使用荧光报告基因定位无核基因表达和三种植物谱系之间的功能互补。