Deciphering the translational landscape of Arabidopsis and maize meiocytes

减数分裂对有性生殖生物的生命周期至关重要，例如大多数开花植物。此外，减数分裂是生物多样性的关键，也是植物育种的关键。我们和其他人最近的数据强烈表明，植物的减数分裂，类似于酵母的减数分裂，依赖于普遍的翻译控制。然而，由于减数细胞很难分离，特别是从拟南芥中分离，我们对植物减数分裂的分子认识是最先进的，因此对减数分裂基因通过翻译调控的了解很少。根据我们团队目前的进展，我们现在可以克服这些技术限制，并将在这里获得拟南芥的拟南芥属植物的翻译体。在种间方法中，我们将鉴定玉米减数细胞的翻译体，玉米是一种单子叶植物，也是最重要的作物之一。通过对玉米的丰富知识和我们部门收集单细胞的独特设置，玉米工作成为可能。玉米减数细胞的大尺寸也使我们能够获得雌性和雄性减数细胞的翻译组。因此，我们不仅可以比较开花植物中两个主要谱系内保守的调控机制，而且可以比较不同性别之间的调控机制。此外，将酵母减数分裂的调控与获得的植物翻译体进行比较，将使我们能够揭示真核生物减数分裂控制的一般原理和进化主题。高翻译和低翻译的转录本将被详细分析它们的特定蛋白质组成，这些蛋白质与它们结合并控制它们的翻译。同时，我们将解开拟南芥和玉米中三个基因的核糖核蛋白组成，我们已经在我们的准备工作中获得了翻译调控的证据。通过这个开创性的项目，我们希望达到我们对减数分裂中基因调控的理解的新水平。因此，我们将为汉堡大学新成立的部门建立一个长期的研究基地，利用现有的玉米专业知识以及我们之前在拟南芥方面的经验和准备工作。

Meiosis is of central importance for the life cycle of sexually reproducing organisms, such as the majority of flowering plants. Moreover, meiosis is key to biodiversity and with that also for plant breeding. Recent data from us and others strongly suggest that meiosis in plants, similar to meiosis in yeast, relies on pervasive translational control. However, since meiocytes are difficult to isolate, especially from Arabidopsis, in which our molecular understanding of plant meiosis is most advanced, very little is known about meiotic gene regulation through translation. Based on current advances in our team, we can now overcome these technical limitations and will here obtain the translatome of the eudicotyledonous species Arabidopsis thaliana. In an interspecies approach, we will then identify the translatome of meiocytes in maize, a monocotyledonous species and one of the most important crops. The maize work is made possible through substantial knowledge on maize and a unique set up in our department to collect single cells. The large size of maize meiocytes also allows us to obtain the translatome of female and male meiocytes. Thus, we can compare not only conserved regulatory mechanisms within the two main lineages among flowering plants but also between sexes. Furthermore, comparing the regulation of meiosis in yeast with the obtained plant translatomes will allow us to reveal general principles and evolutionary themes in meiotic control in eukaryotes. Highly translated and very poorly translated transcripts will then be analyzed in detail for their particular compositions of proteins that bind to them and control their translation. In parallel, we will unravel the ribonucleo-protein composition of three genes in Arabidopsis and maize for which we have obtained evidence for translational regulation in our preparatory work. With this pioneering project we want reach a new level of our understanding of gene regulation in meiosis. Thereby, we will create a long-term research base for our newly established department at the University of Hamburg that utilizes the existing expertise on maize as well as our previous experience and preparatory work in Arabidopsis.