An Integrated Genomic and Functional Analysis of the Plant Hypersensitive Response

联合PI Gurmukh（Guri）Johal（普渡大学）和Brian Dilkes（普渡大学）有许多疾病可以感染作物，导致产量降低，甚至作物损失。 因此，作物抵抗疾病的能力是一个非常重要的农业性状。 农民可以用杀虫剂来避免一些疾病，或者育种者可以培育抵抗疾病的作物品种。 农作物具有通过防御机制对致病微生物作出反应来抵抗疾病的能力，称为植物过敏反应（HR）。 这是指一个过程，其中受感染的细胞死亡之前，感染可以蔓延到其他细胞在植物中。 尽管它的重要性，以保持健康的作物，很多仍然是未知的HR.In这项工作中，一个多学科的方法，涉及一些领域和实验室为基础的技术将被用来更好地了解玉米，在美国最有经济价值的作物的人力资源。 参与控制HR的基因和过程将被鉴定和表征。 虽然这项工作将主要在玉米中进行，但HR的许多特征可能在不同作物中共享。 因此，这项工作将为植物防御疾病的最重要方式之一提供基本见解，这些知识将有助于通过提高作物对疾病的抵抗力来开发改良作物。与北卡罗来纳州自然科学博物馆的外联活动将侧重于遗传学、植物育种、生物技术和相关社会影响方面的教育活动，并将在与博物馆的现有合作基础上进一步发展，该合作已为初中、高中、家庭学校和成人学生及其教师开发了几个教学模块。 在过去的工作中，一种新的遗传筛选被用来鉴定与控制HR的自然遗传变异相关的位点、基因和途径。在这个项目中，多学科的方法涉及诱变、田间遗传学、高通量基因组和转录组测序、代谢组学、生物信息学、显微镜和分子生物学将用于从分子遗传学，转录，生物化学和组织学角度了解HR。 将鉴定和表征控制HR反应的基因和途径。 将在细胞、转录和代谢水平上观察HR。 将证明一种新的和潜在的广泛适用的方法，用于鉴定和表征赋予定量表型的突变的效用。公众访问本项目产生的测序数据将通过短读档案（www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra）的沉积成为可能。 在转录水平上控制HR的基因的位置的信息（表达数量性状基因座？eQTL）将在MaizeGDB（maizegdb.org）上提供。 生物材料将通过玉米遗传学合作社传播，种质描述将纳入MaizeGDB。

Co-PIs Gurmukh (Guri) Johal (Purdue University) and Brian Dilkes (Purdue University)There are many diseases that can infect crop plants, leading to lower yields and even crop loss. The ability of crop plants to fight off diseases is therefore a very important agricultural trait. Farmers can avoid some diseases with pesticides, or breeders can develop crop varieties that resist diseases. Crops have the ability to fight off diseases by reacting to the disease-causing microorganism with defensive mechanisms, known as the plant hypersensitive response (HR). This refers to a process whereby an infected cell dies before the infection can spread to other cells in the plant. Despite its importance to maintain healthy crops, much remains unknown about the HR. In this work, a multi-disciplinary approach involving a number of field and lab-based techniques will be used to gain a better understanding of the HR in corn, the most economically valuable crop in the US. The genes and processes involved in controlling the HR will be identified and characterized. While this work will be performed primarily in corn, it is likely that many features of the HR are shared among different crops. As such this work will provide fundamental insights into one of the most important ways plants defend themselves against diseases, and the knowledge will be useful to develop improved crop plants by making them more resistant to diseases. Outreach activities with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences will focus on educational activities on genetics, plant breeding, biotechnology and associated societal implications and will build on an existing collaboration with the museum that has developed several instructional modules for middle, high school, home school and mature students and their teachers. These continuing programs will be supported and several new programs will be developed around DNA sequence analysis, biotechnology and society.In previous work, a novel genetic screen was used to identify loci, genes and pathways associated with natural genetic variation that controlled HR. In this project, a multi-disciplinary approach involving mutagenesis, field genetics, high-throughput genomic and transcriptomic sequencing, metabolomics, bioinformatics, microscopy and molecular biology will be used to gain an understanding of the HR from molecular genetic, transcriptional, biochemical and histological perspectives. Genes and pathways controlling the HR response will be identified and characterized. The HR will be observed at cellular, transcriptional and metabolic levels. The utility of a novel and potentially widely-applicable approach for the identification and characterization of mutations conferring quantitative phenotypes will be demonstrated. Public access to sequencing data generated this project will be made possible through deposition at the Short Read Archive (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra). Information on the position of genes controlling the HR at the transcriptional level (expression Quantitative Trait Loci ? eQTL) will be made available at MaizeGDB (maizegdb.org). Biological materials will be disseminated via the Maize Genetics Coop and germplasm descriptions will be included in MaizeGDB.