Collaborative Research: Plant Heat Tolerance through Cross-kingdom Interactions

当土壤温度超过100°F时，大多数植物无法生长。然而，在黄石国家公园，地热地区的土壤温度可能要高得多，偶尔可以在高达125°F的土壤中生长植物。这些植物中生长着一种名为凸起弯孢菌的真菌，如果没有真菌，它们就无法在这种土壤温度下生长。真菌本身感染了一种病毒，这种病毒也是植物、真菌和病毒的整个耐热系统(称为共生)生存所必需的。然而，该系统中的病毒和真菌以及环境中其他微生物相互作用系统之间的相互作用却知之甚少。对于理解应对环境压力的适应性变化，一个关键的关键是缺失。此外，很少有有益的病毒被描述或研究。这项研究的长期目标是了解植物和互惠微生物如何相互作用，以及它们周围的环境如何获得抗逆性。这个项目将研究定义这种相互作用机制的生理学和遗传学。它的目标是：1)识别和表征更多的耐热植物-真菌-病毒共生体；2)鉴定参与热胁迫下三向共生的植物和真菌的基因表达和代谢产物的变化；3)研究来自每个有机体的蛋白质如何相互作用；以及4)测试已发现的基因对耐热性的影响。随着地球气候的变化，以及为日益增长的人口生产越来越多的食物的需要，了解植物如何自然地适应黄石国家公园所看到的环境变化，将提供具有潜在农业应用的工具。

Most plants cannot grow when soil temperatures reach levels that are above 100 °F. However, in Yellowstone National Park soil temperatures can be much higher in the geothermal areas, and occasionally plants can be found growing in soils in temperatures up to 125 °F. These plants have a fungus, called Curvularia protuberata that grows in them, and they cannot grow in these soil temperatures without the fungus. The fungus itself is infected with a virus, and the virus also is required for the whole thermal tolerant system of plant, fungus and virus (called a symbiosis) to survive. However, the interactions between the virus and fungus in this system and other microbe-interacting systems in the environment are very poorly understood. A crucial key to the understanding of adaptive changes in response to environmental stress is missing. In addition, very few beneficial viruses have been described or studied. The long-term goal of the research is to understand how plants and mutualistic microorganisms interact with one another and their surrounding environments to acquire stress tolerance. This project will study the physiology and genetics that define the mechanism of this interaction. Its goals are to: 1) Identify and characterize additional plant-fungus-virus symbionts that are thermotolerant; 2) Identify the genetic expression and metabolite changes of plants and fungi involved in the three way symbiosis during heat stress; 3) Study how the proteins from each organism interact; and 4) Test the genes discovered for their effects on tolerance to heat. With changes in the Earth's climate and the need to produce more and more food for the increasing human population, learning how plants adapt naturally to environmental changes such as are seen in Yellowstone National Park will provide tools with potential application to agriculture.