Discovery and application of regulatory mechanisms controlling SNF1 kinase dependent stress resistance

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Global weather extremes and population pressures on world food supply, combined with decreasing arable land availability and declining ocean stocks, underscore the urgency in understanding how to enhance food production in suboptimal environments. Critical to stress resistance is the SNF1 kinase enzyme complex. Our earlier work with yeast cells showed that SNF1 kinase activity is important in promoting the cells' responses to environmental stress and lack of nutrients, helping them to adapt to poor conditions. Conserved versions of SNF1 enzymes are found in all plants and animals. Understanding how their action is regulated genetically, and how it helps organisms to survive, offers the potential to develop crops and livestock that are better adapted to thrive in harsh environments. Our short term goals aim to provide evidence that food production can be enhanced through SNF1 kinase activity, and to identify targets for future approaches to the same end. ******Our short term goals will be addressed by the following three objectives:***Objective 1: To establish the significance of enhanced Snf1 activity on stress resistance in plants***Objective 2: To establish the significance of enhanced Snf1 activity on stress resistance in fish***Objective 3: To perform a large-scale yeast screen to comprehensively identify activators and repressors of SNF1 kinase including those involved in nuclear-cytosolic segregation. ******Part of our work involves an intensive search that will identify new methods of activating this enzyme. Another aspect of the proposed work is to directly test how a known overactive enzyme will provide survival benefits when exposed to realistic stresses. Within this funding cycle, we will measure how the genetic enhancement of SNF1 kinase activity augments plant and fish survival when they are exposed to common stressors associated with poor production environments. Arabidopsis, a brassica related to canola, cabbage and other food crops, and zebrafish will be used to test survivability and health when SNF1 kinase activity is augmented. Plants will be exposed to conditions of low soil nutrients, high salinity and heavy metal contamination. Fish will be subjected to temperature variations, low nutrients, variable levels of ammonia waste, and human handling. In the long term, such benefits will be translated to the engineering of more robust agricultural and aquacultural strains that will have positive impacts on world food supply. This will also specifically benefit Canada through the creation of stress resistant Atlantic salmon or rainbow trout, or stress resistant canola and legumes, which are valuable economic industries.**