Mechanism of trehalose control of shoot development

植物如何根据资源（包括通过光合作用产生的糖）的可用性来协调它们的生长和发育，在很大程度上是未知的。该项目将研究一种名为RAMOSA3的基因，该基因产生一种酶，可以降解一种名为海藻糖-6-磷酸（T6P）的糖。T6P被认为是植物中的一种重要激素，类似于动物中的胰岛素。研究人员发现了RAMOSA3酶的一些意想不到的特性，包括存在于细胞核中，并与一类与核糖核酸结合的蛋白质相互作用。这些发现表明RAMOSA3与它作为酶的预期功能有所不同，研究人员将探索RAMOSA3能够控制植物生长的方式。更广泛的影响：植物根据可用资源调整其生长，但如何实现代谢和发育之间的串扰尚不清楚，项目成果将使人们更清楚地了解其与农业生产力的相关性。研究人员还将通过培训研究生和高中生以及博士后研究员，为推广和教育做出贡献。这位调查员指导了一个项目，该项目允许当地的高中生，包括少数民族，体验研究实验室的生活。研究人员的实验室还将与纽约布鲁克林的一所中学开展教育和研究交流，让学生亲身体验科学研究的乐趣，并讨论科学如何造福社会。双糖海藻糖及其中间体海藻糖-6-磷酸（T6P）已成为植物糖代谢的重要调节因子，海藻糖途径突变体或错表达系具有影响分枝、开花时间和干旱敏感性的特定表型。然而，T6P控制这些过程的分子机制尚不清楚。本研究旨在了解编码海藻糖磷酸酶（TPP）酶的RAMOSA3 （RA3）调控玉米茎枝分枝的机制。初步结果表明，RA3在细胞核中起作用，在亚核区域发现，并与RNA结合蛋白发生遗传和物理相互作用。这些发现表明，RA3可能与RNA结合蛋白一起参与基因调控网络，控制下游基因对代谢信号的表达。与RA3相互作用的RNA结合蛋白的发现为了解代谢酶如何控制指导植物发育或植物生长的其他方面所必需的基因表达提供了机会。这项研究将在这些发现的基础上，阐明下游因素和相互作用的蛋白质和rna，这将导致RA3如何在代谢和发育控制中作为一个跨尺度的整合者发挥作用的新模型。该项目还将培养多个层次的学生，并将为初高中植物生物学研究的公共教育做出贡献。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响评估标准进行了评估，认为值得支持。

How plants coordinate their growth and development according to the availability of resources, including sugars produced through photosynthesis, is largely unknown. The project will study a gene called RAMOSA3 that produces an enzyme that can degrade a type of sugar called trehalose-6-phosphate (T6P). T6P is thought to be an important hormone in plants, similar to insulin in animals. The researchers have found unexpected properties of the RAMOSA3 enzyme, including being present in the nucleus of cells, and interacting with a class of proteins that bind to ribonucleic acids. These findings suggest that RAMOSA3 is doing something different to its expected function as an enzyme, and the researchers will explore the ways in which RAMOSA3 is able to control how plants grow. Broader Impacts: Plants adapt their growth according to available resources, but how crosstalk between metabolism and development is achieved is not well understood, and the project outcomes will give a clearer understanding of relevance to agricultural productivity. The researchers will also contribute to outreach and education by training graduate and high school students as well as a post-doctoral researcher. The investigator directs a program, which allows local high school students, including minorities, to experience life in a research lab. The investigator's lab will also develop an educational and research exchange with a Middle School in Brooklyn, New York, with hands on experiments used to confer the excitement of scientific research to students, and discussions of how science benefits society. The disaccharide trehalose and its intermediate trehalose-6-phosphate (T6P) have emerged as important regulators of sugar metabolism in plants, and trehalose pathway mutants or mis-expression lines have specific phenotypes affecting branching, flowering time and drought sensitivity. However, the molecular mechanism by which T6P controls these processes is unknown. This research project is to understand the mechanism by which RAMOSA3 (RA3), which encodes a trehalose phosphate phosphatase (TPP) enzyme, controls maize shoot branching. Preliminary results suggest that RA3 acts in the nucleus, where it is found in sub-nuclear domains, and interacts genetically and physically with RNA binding proteins. These findings suggest that RA3 may act in a gene regulatory network with RNA binding proteins, to control expression of downstream genes in response to metabolic signals. The discovery of RNA binding proteins that interact with RA3 provides an opportunity to understand how a metabolic enzyme can control gene expression necessary to direct plant development or other aspects of plant growth. The research will build on these findings by elucidating downstream factors and interacting proteins and RNAs that will lead to new emergent models of how RA3 functions as an integrator across scales in metabolic and developmental control. The project will also train students at multiple levels and will contribute to public education of plant biology research at middle and high school levelsThis award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.