植物自噬是细胞内受损蛋白被自噬体包裹后，送入液泡进行降解并循环利用的过程，在植物逆境响应中起着重要作用。蔬菜作物上关于自噬研究几乎还是空白，逆境下其信号调控和毒性蛋白降解机制尚不清楚。我们发现，番茄质膜上由RBOH1产生的活性氧（ROS）信号通过激活MAPK1/2启动植物干旱抗性；因而提出干旱下番茄通过诱导ROS信号激活MAPKs，调控下游信号元件，促进自噬体形成的假设。本项目拟以蔬菜主栽作物番茄为材料，采用基因沉默（VIGS）、激光共聚焦、qRT-PCR等技术研究干旱逆境下产生的ROS信号与随后激活的MAPK在自噬形成中的作用，研究干旱下自噬基因的响应，明确干旱下调控番茄自噬的关键MAPK基因及其下游信号元件；并结合基因表达谱分析干旱环境下番茄基因转录组调控，揭示自噬调控番茄干旱抗性的信号途径及其分子机理，以期为利用植物自噬机制提高作物抗旱性提供理论。

Plant autophagy is the basic catabolic mechanism that involves cell degradation of dysfunctional proteins through the actions of vacuole. Autophagy plays a critical role in plant stress response. However, the research of autophagy is still blank in vegetable crops, and the mechanism of autophagy regulation and degradation of toxic proteins is still unclear. In recent years, the applicant has discovered that RBOH1-induced ROS and subsequent activation of MAPK1/2 play important roles in tomato drought tolerance. Therefore, the applicant proposes the hypothesis that tomato can induce ROS production and subsequent activation of MAPKs. Then ROS-MAPK regulates downstream signaling components to form autophagy under drought stress. The project plans to use tomato as material and VIGS, confocal lase and qRT-PCR technologies, and is aimed at the effects of ROS signaling and subsequent activation of MAPKs in autophagosome formation and the expression of autophagy related genes under drought stresses. The project will also research the downstream signal components of the critical MAPK in regulation of autophagy under drought stress. Finally, the project plans to analysis the gene profiling of tomato under drought stress, and meanwhile, understand the pathways and molecular mechanisms of autophagy regulated drought stress tolerance in plants. The project is expected to provide theoretic bases for the efficient use of autophagy and increase of crops drought resistance.