I-Corps: Controlling Protein Translation

I-Corps项目的广泛影响和商业潜力正在彻底改变农民种植作物的方式，并显著减少对化肥或农药的依赖，以最大限度地提高产量。了解如何操纵植物应激反应的自然成分以提供理想的有益性状，将有可能减少农业中化学品的使用。该技术提供了一种新的机制来表达通常会阻碍植物生长的广谱免疫反应。这种新机制具有巨大的潜在社会和商业影响。目前，农业公司使用特定于一种病原体的启动子系统来表达抗性基因。植物种子中包含的每个抗性基因都会产生负的适应度成本。这里开发的技术可以潜在地消除表达多个抗性基因的需要，用一个广谱抗性基因代替它们。这个I-Corps项目进一步开发了tbf1控制盒技术（TCC），以调节可诱导和特异性的翻译。目前的基因表达方法主要基于利用合成启动子或天然启动子的转录调控，这些方法被证明不足以克服与应激反应基因表达相关的负适应成本。TCC技术通过“拖延”目标基因的翻译，直到出现触发因素，来弥补这些负适应度成本。这种机制允许转录本的积累而不需要随后的翻译，因此在蛋白质被翻译之前没有负适应性成本。该技术已被证明在水稻上有效，并可应用于其他经济上重要的作物，如小麦或玉米。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is revolutionizing how farmers grow their crops and significantly reduced the dependence on fertilizers or pesticides to maximize yields. Understanding how to manipulate natural components of the plant stress response to provide desirable beneficial traits will potentially lead to reductions in chemical use in agriculture. This technology provides a novel mechanism to express broad spectrum immune response that would normally stunt plant growth. This novel mechanism has large potential societal and commercial impacts. Currently, agricultural companies express resistance genes using promoter systems that are specific for one strain of pathogen. Each resistance gene included in the plant seed results in a negative fitness cost. The technology developed here can potentially eliminate the need to express multiple resistance genes by replacing them with one broad spectrum resistance gene.This I-Corps project further develops a TBF1-Control Cassette technology (TCC) to regulate translation that is both inducible and specific. Current gene expression methods are primarily based on transcriptional regulation utilizing synthetic or native promoters, which were shown to be insufficient in overcoming negative fitness costs associated with expression of stress response genes. The TCC technology remediates these negative fitness cost by "stalling" the translation of the gene of interest until a trigger is present. This mechanism allows for the accumulation of transcripts without the subsequent translation, and hence no negative fitness costs until the protein is translated. The technology was proven to work in rice and can be applied to other economically important crops, such as wheat or corn.