Platform for plant growth, development and stress biology research

我们请求支持NSERC资助的五名生物学家和一名化学家的研究项目所必需的仪器平台。这些生物学家在植物细胞和分子生物学、植物遗传学、植物生理学、植物营养和植物生物化学方面拥有专业知识。这位化学家开发了下一代生物分子磁共振成像的探针，有兴趣开发和应用这种技术来进行植物胁迫生物学研究。这个多学科、充满活力和凝聚力的小组的一个合作兴趣是了解干旱、高盐和极端温度等常见环境胁迫如何影响植物的新陈代谢、营养、生长和发育。例如，目前的一个焦点是阐明干旱期间线粒体呼吸与光合作用代谢相互作用并帮助光合作用代谢的方式。人们还在努力了解植物激素在确定种子对高温的敏感性方面所起的作用，了解使植物能够承受高温和其他环境胁迫的蛋白质质量控制系统，以及研究各种作物和模式植物在最佳和营养胁迫条件下的离子传输机制。这组主要研究人员的总体目标是寻找方法来改善在次优田间条件下生长的植物的表现。

We request support for a platform of instruments essential to the NSERC-funded research programs of five biologists and one chemist. The biologists have expertise in plant cell and molecular biology, plant genetics, plant physiology, plant nutrition and plant biochemistry. The chemist develops probes for next generation magnetic resonance imaging of biomolecules, with an interest to develop and apply such technology for plant stress biology research. A collaborative interest of this multidisciplinary, dynamic and cohesive group is to understand how plant metabolism, nutrition, growth and development are impacted by common environmental stresses such as drought, high salt and extreme temperature. For example, one current focus is to elucidate the means by which mitochondrial respiration interacts with and aids photosynthetic metabolism during periods of drought. Efforts are also being put toward understanding the role of plant hormones in defining seed susceptibility to high temperature, understanding the protein quality control systems that enable plants to withstand high temperature and other environmental stresses, and work examining ion transport mechanisms in a variety of crop and model plant species under both optimal and nutrient stress conditions. The over-arching goal of this group of principal investigators is to identify means to improve the performance of plants growing under sub-optimal field conditions.