EAGER: Investigating plant thermomorphogenesis using innovative miniature devices

全球气候变化引起了环境生长温度的显著波动，深刻地影响了植物的各种发育、生理和形态反应，包括茎和根的快速伸长、叶柄生长和叶片向上弯曲以及早花。了解植物如何根据温度变化调整其发育程序，是提高植物适合性和维持作物生产力的关键。大多数温度信号机制是在全植物水平上揭示的，这平均了不同的器官和细胞类型，因此无意中造成了所提出的热感应和反应机制的一刀切的错觉。拟议的实验旨在开发一种新型微型设备，以研究器官和细胞层面的热传感和反应。这项新技术可以准确地感应和监测特定器官、组织或细胞的热变化，从而有可能区分不同器官和细胞类型的不同热反应，并揭示不同器官和细胞层在协调热反应期间的通信机制。这项技术还没有开发出来，因此在执行中可能会有风险，预计会有很高的回报，因为它将彻底改变各种多细胞生物体和单细胞克隆中的热传感和响应研究。这些知识可以用来推进我们对全球变暖如何影响植物生长和发育的理解，并提供可能有助于科学家培育气候智能作物的知识基础。该项目还为代表性不足群体的学生提供了跨学科研究培训的机会。该合作项目的研究人员计划以双子叶植物拟南芥的温度响应性下胚轴(胚茎)和根的生长为模型，建立微型加热器辅助的热形态发生研究(Miheats)。该项目包括三个组成部分。首先，将开发一种新的制造技术，以生产可扩展、耐用和灵活的低成本、自行设计的微型加热器。接下来，Miheats将在普兰塔实施，并将对拟南芥幼苗进行一系列表型和遗传分析，以评估Miheats的技术成果。最后，将利用转录组学和蛋白质组学分析来确定不同器官/细胞中共同调节的基因和蛋白质模块，并揭示器官和细胞特异性热形态发生信号的同质性和异质性。因此，该项目致力于了解生命规则并通过注入微/纳米制造和微创方法的进展来促进融合研究，以创建一种新的解算器，用于研究器官/细胞自主和非自主反应以及器官间和细胞间通信对多细胞生物体中温度波动的响应。此外，这个高风险/高回报的项目将改善密西西比大学本科生物学教育核心能力的愿景和变化，特别是利用科学的跨学科性质以及与其他学科沟通和合作的能力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Global climate change has generated significant fluctuations in ambient growth temperature, which profoundly influences diverse developmental, physiological, and morphological responses in plants, including rapid stem and root elongation, enhanced leafstalk growth and upward leaf bending, and early flowering. Understanding how plants adjust their developmental programs in response to temperature variations is central to improve plant fitness and sustain crop productivity. Most temperature signaling mechanisms were revealed at the whole-plant level, which averages distinct organ and cell types and thus inadvertently creates a one-size-fits-all illusion of proposed thermal sensing and response mechanisms. The proposed experiments are aimed at developing a novel miniature device to study thermal sensing and responses at the organ and cell levels. This new technology allows accurate induction and monitoring of thermal changes in a specific organ, tissue, or cell, making it possible to differentiate distinct thermal responses in various organs and cell types, and unveil the communication mechanisms between different organs and cell layers during coordinated thermal responses. The technology, not yet developed so is potentially risky in execution, is expected to be high reward because it will revolutionize research on thermal sensing and responses in various multicellular organisms and unicellular colonials. This knowledge can be used to advance our understanding of how global warming affects plant growth and development and provide the knowledge basis that may facilitate scientists to generate climate-smart crops. The project also offers opportunities in interdisciplinary research training for students of underrepresented groups.The investigators of this collaborative project plan to use thermoresponsive hypocotyl (the embryonic stem) and root growth in the dicotyledonous plant Arabidopsis thaliana as a model to establish the Miniature heater-assisted thermomorphogenetic study (Miheats). The project comprises three components. First, a novel manufacturing technique will be developed to produce low-cost, self-designed miniature heaters that are scalable, durable, and flexible. Next, Miheats will be implemented in planta and a series of phenotypic and genetic analyses of Arabidopsis seedlings will be performed to evaluate the technical outcomes of Miheats. Finally, transcriptomic and proteomic analyses will be employed to identify co-regulated gene and protein modules in different organs/cells and unveil the homogeneity and heterogeneity of organ- and cell-specific thermomorphogenetic signaling. Therefore, the project addresses Understanding the Rules of Life and grows Convergence Research by infusing advances in micro/nanofabrication and minimally invasive approaches to create a new solver for investigating organ/cell-autonomous and -nonautonomous reactions as well as interorgan and intercellular communications in response to temperature fluctuations in multi-cellular organisms. Further, this high risk / high reward project will improve the Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education core competencies, especially the ability to tap into the interdisciplinary nature of science and the ability to communicate and collaborate with other disciplines, of underrepresented minority students at the University of Mississippi.This 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.