Rotation 1: Circadian clocks in wheat and Arabidopsis

BBSRC战略主题：生物科学促进可持续农业和食品病原体感染对植物健康和全球作物生产构成严重威胁。最近的研究强调了表观遗传过程的关键作用，包括DNA甲基化、组蛋白修饰、染色质组装和重塑，在调节植物防御反应的转录景观中。特别是，这些表观遗传机制如何在暴露于给定的压力源（也称为启动）时促进增强的、持久的疾病抗性，是最近深入研究的一个领域。了解植物防御启动的这些表观遗传机制无疑将为旨在提高作物抗病性的育种策略提供新的途径，然而，该领域的大多数进展都来自对拟南芥的研究。本项目旨在探讨番茄（Solanum lycopersicum）防御启动的表观遗传学基础，重点研究组蛋白修饰和染色质重塑的作用。这包括表征H3K9me2沉积缺陷的氪石（kyp）突变体的引物缺陷表型，筛选引物和非引物番茄品系的转录组和表观基因组，以及开发靶向组蛋白修饰和表观基因组工程的创新工具。本研究的结果将有助于更好地理解植物防御机制，并通过精确调节防御相关基因为开发抗病作物品种提供策略。

BBSRC strategic theme: Bioscience for sustainable agriculture and foodPathogen infections pose a severe threat to plant health and global crop production. Recent studies have highlighted the pivotal role of epigenetic processes, including DNA methylation, histone modifications, chromatin assembly, and remodeling, in regulating the transcriptional landscape of plant defense responses. Particularly, how these epigenetic mechanisms facilitate enhanced, long-lasting diseases resistance upon exposure to a given stressor - otherwise known as priming - is an area of recent intensive investigation. Understanding these epigenetic mechanisms of plant defense priming will undoubtedly provide novel avenues for breeding strategies aimed at enhancing disease resistance in crops, however, most advances in this field are derived from studies in Arabidopsis. This project aims to explore the epigenetic basis of defense priming in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), a commercially important crop species, with a focus on the role of histone modifications and chromatin remodeling. This includes characterizing the priming-defective phenotype of kryptonite (kyp) mutants defective in H3K9me2 deposition, screening the transcriptome and epigenome of primed and non-primed tomato lines, and developing innovative tools for targeted histone modification and epigenome engineering. The findings from this research will ultimately contribute to a better understanding of plant defense mechanisms and provide strategies for developing disease-resistant crop varieties through precise modulation of defense-related genes.