CAREER: Using Microbial Bioproduction Platform to Elucidate Phytochemical Biosynthesis - Strigolactone as An Example

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Plants produce small molecules with a variety of health effects. Some well-known plant-derived small molecules include nicotine, caffeine, essential oils, aspirin, digitalis, and coumarin. The biological synthesis of these molecules is not well-understood. This limits the source of these active pharmaceutical molecules to plant harvest and extraction. This project will investigate a new approach for their manufacture. This will involve transferring potential plant pathway genes into yeast and evaluating production of the products in that organism. This approach also helps to uncover the details of the synthetic pathways. In addition, this research project will pursue educational goals. The first is to increase the number of female students pursuing STEM career paths by offering undergraduate women research opportunities. The second is to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers by offering summer research opportunities to students from nearby high schools and community colleges. The feasibility and efficiency of using microbial bioproduction as a platform to elucidate plant secondary metabolism will be evaluated. Strigolactones (SLs), a class of plant hormones, will be the model compounds studied. SLs are essential for plant growth and development. They normally exhibit extremely low abundance in nature. The genes for the putative SL biosynthetic pathway will be cloned into microbial systems and expressed. Three specific objectives will be pursued. First, the recently established SL-producing microbial consortia will be optimized for SL production. Then, the mechanisms driving SL biosynthesis in cereal crops, specifically sorghum and maize, will be elucidated. Finally, efforts will be made to establish single-cell SL bioproduction. This project could provide a significant step towards (1) advancing the foundational understanding of plant specialized metabolism, (2) promoting the discovery and utilization of novel phytochemicals for agricultural and pharmaceutical applications, and (3) developing next-generation precision agriculture with enhanced productivity and resilience. The project could also provide the foundation to develop Striga-resistance in cereal crops to prevent crop loss.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.