Function and Regulation of AIFs in Brassinosteroid Signaling

油菜素类固醇是一种重要的植物激素，通过增加或减少数百个或数千个植物基因的表达，促进植物生长，增强植物对各种环境胁迫的抵抗力。本项目采用生物化学、细胞和分子生物学、基因组学和遗传学相结合的方法，研究了一小类基本螺旋-环-螺旋转录因子在调节其中一些生长相关基因表达方面的生物学功能。它还研究了这些转录因子本身的基因调控活性是如何由蛋白质磷酸化和蛋白质相互作用控制的。该项目的成功完成将大大提高我们对植物类固醇激素刺激生长的基因调控机制的了解，并可能导致更好的战略，以提高作物的谷物产量和生物燃料原料的生物量产量。该项目将为本科生、研究生和博士后研究员提供极好的培训机会，以获得重要的研究经验，并培养他们批判性分析实验数据、制定可检验假说和解决科学问题的能力。它还将为密歇根大学的本科生研究机会计划和暑期研究机会计划做出贡献，该计划专门招募优秀的未被充分代表的本科生进入研究实验室。这个项目将把拟议的研究活动与植物生物学入门课程结合起来，并将产生令人兴奋的实验数据，这些数据将与植物生理学课程的学生讨论。拟议项目的成功实施将创造出有趣的突变或转基因植物，可以作为当地公立学校科学教育的教材。

Brassinosteroids are important plant hormones that promote plant growth and enhance plant resistance to a variety of environmental stresses by increasing or decreasing the expression of hundreds, if not thousands of plant genes. This project uses a combinatory approach of biochemistry, cell and molecular biology, genomics, and genetics to investigate the biological functions of a small family of basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors in regulating the expression of some of these growth-related genes. It also studies how the gene-regulatory activities of these transcription factors themselves are controlled by protein phosphorylation and protein-protein interaction. The successful completion of this project will significantly enhance our understanding of the gene regulatory mechanisms of the plant steroid hormones to stimulate growth and could lead to better strategies to increase grain yield in crop plants and biomass production in biofuel feedstocks. This project will provide excellent training opportunities for undergraduates, graduate students and a postdoctoral research fellow to gain significant research experience and to develop their ability to critically analyze experimental data, formulate testable hypothesis, and solve scientific problems. It will also contribute to the University of Michigan's Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program and Summer Research Opportunity Program that specifically recruits outstanding underrepresented undergraduates into research laboratories. This project will integrate the proposed research activities with an Introductory Plant Biology course and will generate exciting experimental data that will be discussed with students of a Plant Physiology course. The successful execution of the proposed project will create interesting mutant or transgenic plants that can be used as teaching materials for science education at local public schools.