Ds Regional Mutagenesis: A Platform for Defining Gene Function in Maize

PI：托马斯P.布鲁特内尔（博伊斯汤普森植物研究所）Vollbrecht（爱荷华州州立大学）主要合作者：Jonathan P. Duvick（爱荷华州州立大学）玉米是美国种植的最重要的经济粮食、饲料和生物燃料作物。 它作为美国和国外主要谷物的优势是建立在极其广泛的种质基础和非常成功的育种努力之上的。然而，随着世界人口和能源成本以惊人的速度增加，我们面临着第二次绿色革命的需要。这将包括开发第二代作物和开发新种质，增强抗旱性，耐盐性和提高氮的利用效率。这些努力的核心是需要将基因型与表型联系起来。 也就是说，基因型变异如何影响表型变异？ 突变分析是遗传学的基石，也是将基因型变异与表型变异联系起来的重要工具。因此，该项目的目标是开发一个非常强大的反向遗传资源，以确定玉米中的基因功能。超过1,500个Ds插入线的序列索引集合将作为该项目的基础。 Ds插入紧密连锁位点的趋势将被利用来产生功能丧失基因插入，绘制基因的边界，包括启动子和增强子元件，并定义QTL间隔中的基因空间。一个社区驱动的，分层的“Ds敲除”服务将被开发，以扩展Ds插入诱变的效用，为不同资源的科学家服务。将从社区征集候选基因，期望每个靶基因的多个等位基因将从局部Ds插入中回收。 还将开发一个基于网络的公共界面，以提供有关集合中可用的Ds插入的详细信息，以及用于设计结合Ds插入位点偏好的反向遗传筛选的新工具。该项目的一个中心目标是通过创新课程将正在进行的植物科学研究的兴奋带入高中课堂。在赠款的三年中，每年将在博伊斯汤普森研究所举行一次课程开发研讨会（CDW）。CDW的目标是为高中、社区大学和小型大学生物课程开发基于探究的植物科学活动。 教师将获得必要的实验室和教学材料的资金，并将与博士后助理和外联协调员合作，在学年期间实施这些模块。还将举办研讨会，培训研究生，博士后和PI在遗传和分子技术所需的最佳利用在此项目期间开发的Ds线。 通过该项目生成的数据、项目更新和遗传材料链接将发布在http://www.plantgdb.org/prj/AcDsTagging/和http://www.maizegdb.org/

PI: Thomas P. Brutnell (Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research)CoPI: Erik W. Vollbrecht (Iowa State University)Key Collaborator: Jonathan P. Duvick (Iowa State University)Maize is the most economically important food, feed and biofuel crop grown in the US. Its predominance as a staple grain for the US and abroad is built on an extremely broad germplasm base and upon highly successful breeding efforts. However, as world population and energy costs increase at an alarming rate, we are faced with the need for a second green revolution. This will include developing second generation crops and developing new germplasm with enhanced resistance to drought, salt tolerance and improved nitrogen use efficiency. At the core of these efforts is a need to link genotype to phenotype. That is, how does genotypic variation contribute to phenotypic variation? Mutational analysis has been the cornerstone of genetics and has been an essential tool to link genotypic variation to phenotypic variation. Thus, the goal of this project is to develop an extremely powerful reverse genetics resource to define gene function in maize. A sequence-indexed collection of over 1,500 Ds insertion lines will serve as a foundation for this project. The tendency of Ds to insert to closely linked sites will be exploited to generate loss-of-function gene insertions, map the boundaries of genes, including promoter and enhancer elements, and define the gene space in QTL intervals. A community-driven, tiered "Ds knockout" service will be developed to extend the utility of Ds insertional mutagenesis to serve scientists with varying resources. Candidate genes will be solicited from the community with the expectation that multiple alleles of each targeted gene will be recovered from local Ds insertions. A web-based public interface will also be developed to provide detailed information on the Ds insertions available in the collection as well as new tools for designing reverse genetic screens that incorporate the insertion site preferences of Ds. A central aim of this project is to bring the excitement of ongoing plant science research into high school classrooms through innovative curricula. For each of the three years of the grant, a Curriculum Development Workshop (CDW) will be held at the Boyce Thompson Institute. The goal of the CDW is to develop inquiry-based plant science activities for high school, community college and small college biology courses. Teachers will receive funding for necessary lab and teaching materials and will work with a postdoctoral associate and an outreach coordinator to implement these modules during the academic year. Workshops will also be held to train graduate students, postdocs and PI in the genetic and molecular techniques required to best exploit the Ds lines developed during this project. Data generated through this project, project updates and links to genetic materials will be posted at http://www.plantgdb.org/prj/AcDsTagging/ and http://www.maizegdb.org/