18 BTT EAGER - Engineering complex traits using targeted, multiplexed genetic and epigenetic mutagenesis

对环境变化作出反应的复杂植物性状是由大量基因调控的。例如，土壤中氮的耗竭改变了大量基因的表达水平和模式，影响了根系发育、生长速度和开花时间等特征。这对植物生长发育的方式有相当大的影响，并可能导致作物产量的减少。遗传变异是为了作物改良，通过选择具有与理想性状相关的特定变异的植物，将其纳入育种计划。迄今为止，大多数的焦点都集中在创造和利用基因编码区域的遗传变异上。在这个项目中，我们将专注于开发工具来创建非编码调控序列的遗传和表观遗传变异。我们的目标是引入突变，重新编程对环境氮可用性的反应。这些将为基因组工程在作物改良中的应用提供新的工具和方法，也将提供关于如何利用非编码调控区域的变异来培育或设计作物的复杂性状的新知识。

Complex plant traits that respond to changes in the environment are regulated by large suites of genes. For example, the depletion of Nitrogen in the soil alters the levels and patterns of expression of large numbers of genes, affecting features such as root development, growth rate and flowering time. This has a considerable impact on the way that plants grow and develop and can lead to reductions in crop yields. Genetic variations are for crop improvement by selecting plants with specific variants associated with desirable traits for inclusion in breeding programs. To date, most focus has been on creating and exploiting genetic variations in the coding regions of genes. In this project we will focus on developing tools to create genetic and epigenetic variation in the non-coding regulatory sequences. Our aims are to introduce mutations that reprogram responses to environmental nitrogen availability. These will contribute new tools and approaches for the application of genome engineering to crop improvement and will also provide new knowledge about how variation in non-coding regulatory regions can be exploited to breed or engineer complex traits in crops.