Collaborative Research: Plant Heat Tolerance through Cross-kingdom Interactions

当土壤温度达到100 °F以上时，大多数植物都不能生长。 然而，在黄石国家公园，地热区的土壤温度可能要高得多，偶尔可以在高达125 °F的温度下发现植物生长在土壤中。 这些植物有一种真菌，叫做弯孢菌，生长在它们身上，如果没有这种真菌，它们就不能在这样的土壤温度下生长。 真菌本身被病毒感染，而病毒也是植物、真菌和病毒的整个耐热系统（称为共生体）生存所必需的。 然而，该系统中病毒和真菌之间的相互作用以及环境中其他微生物相互作用系统的相互作用知之甚少。 理解适应性变化对环境压力的反应的关键是失踪。 此外，很少有有益的病毒被描述或研究。该研究的长期目标是了解植物和互利微生物如何相互作用及其周围环境以获得胁迫耐受性。 本项目将研究定义这种相互作用机制的生理学和遗传学。 其目标是：1）鉴定和表征耐热的其他植物-真菌-病毒共生体; 2）鉴定在热胁迫期间参与三方共生的植物和真菌的遗传表达和代谢物变化; 3）研究来自每种生物的蛋白质如何相互作用;以及4）测试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求，了解植物如何自然地适应环境变化，如黄石国家公园所见，将为农业提供潜在应用的工具。

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.