TRTech-PGR: Advancing Developmental Regulator (DR)-enabled and Genotype-independent Plant Transformation and Genome Editing (DR-CRISPR)

尽管气候不断变化，但植物科学面临的一个主要挑战是为不断增长的人口生产足够的食物和植物衍生产品。大量的公共研究投资在解码植物遗传和基因组信息方面取得了重大进展。将这些知识转化为改良作物通常需要基因工程或基因组编辑技术来开发或组合所需的性状。目前，由于现有植物转化方法的限制，仅在少数作物物种或品种中实现了有效的遗传修饰。该项目的总体目标是为重要的农艺作物大豆开发一种高效、开源的基因转化和修饰系统。开发的工具和资源可以很容易地推广到不同的大豆品种，并将传播给公共研究界，用于大豆作物改良。通过该项目产生的基因组编辑材料将与明尼苏达大学组织的K-12植物基因组工程推广和市场科学项目合作，用于公共教育。基因组编辑技术的最新进展有望推进植物功能基因组学，加速作物改良的转化研究。然而，基因组编辑的普遍应用往往受到许多作物物种缺乏有效遗传转化的阻碍。最近，一项新兴技术通过异位表达发育调节因子（DR）基因，在玉米、小麦和高粱等几种作物物种中显著改善了基因型柔性植株的再生和转化。然而，需要进一步的工作来彻底研究和推广dr介导的再生和转化技术到其他作物。本项目旨在为大豆高效的基因工程和基因组编辑开发一个便捷、独立于基因型、开源的植物转化平台。研究将进行：1)鉴定一套DR基因（或它们的组合），提高农杆菌介导的大豆转化效率；2)通过基因调控网络分析，更好地了解耐药介导的大豆再生机制；3)开发可广泛应用于不同大豆品种的高效开源dr基因组编辑工具包；4)在植物转化和基因组编辑前沿技术方面传播知识，培养下一代科学家。本提案中开发的工具和资源可以很容易地扩展到其他相关作物品种，并将向公众提供。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A major challenge for plant science is to produce sufficient food and plant-derived products for an ever-growing population despite a changing climate. Substantial public research investments have led to significant advances in decoding plant genetic and genomic information. Translation of this knowledge to create improved crops often requires genetic engineering or genome editing technology to develop or combine desired traits. At present, efficient genetic modifications are only achieved in a small number of crop species or varieties due to limitations of current plant transformation methods. The overall goal of this project is to develop an efficient and open-source genetic transformation and modification system for the agronomically important crop, soybean. The developed tools and resources can be easily extended to different soybean varieties and will be disseminated to the public research community for soybean crop improvement. Genome edited materials produced through this project will be used for public education in partnership with the K-12 Plant Genome Engineering Outreach and Market Science Programs organized at University of Minnesota.Recent progress in genome editing technology is poised to advance plant functional genomics and accelerate translational research for crop improvement. However, ubiquitous applications of genome editing are often hindered by the lack of efficient genetic transformation in many crop species. Recently, an emerging technology has provided the potential to significantly improve genotype-flexible plant regeneration and transformation by ectopic expression of developmental regulator (DR) genes in several crop species, such as maize, wheat and sorghum. However, additional work is needed to thoroughly investigate and extend the DR-mediated regeneration and transformation technology to other crops. This project is designed to develop a facile, genotype-independent and open-source plant transformation platform for efficient genetic engineering and genome editing in soybean. Research will be conducted to: 1) identify a suite of DR genes (or combinations of them) that enhance Agrobacterium-mediated transformation efficiency in soybean; 2) achieve a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying DR-mediated regeneration in soybean through gene regulatory network analysis; 3) develop efficient and open source DR-enabled genome editing toolkits that can be broadly applicable to different soybean varieties; and, 4) disseminate knowledge and train the next generation of scientists in cutting-edge plant transformation and genome editing technologies. The tools and resources developed in this proposal could be readily extended to other related crop species and will be made publicly available.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.