Improving seed traits by understanding and modulating transcription

粮食是稳定繁荣文明的基石。大多数主食和植物油都来自种子。由于持续的气候变化和世界人口的增长，确保种子产量和质量是一项紧迫的需求。谷物和油籽是加拿大农场现金收入中最重要的组成部分。因此，了解种子生物学对经济也是至关重要的。我的长期目标是提高种子质量和产量。几十年来对种子的生理特征和遗传研究已经产生了大量的知识和许多重要的开放问题。我的短期目标是用系统的方法回答其中一些问题。目的1研究一组核心转录因子(TF)和转录调节因子(TRs)在模式植物拟南芥种子发育过程中如何协调数千个基因的表达。目标2将解决如何以组织特异性的方式精确地调节种子中的基因表达。目标3旨在将拟南芥的知识转化为加拿大的一种基本作物油菜籽，并查明与农业直接相关的发现。新的实验设计、高通量测序技术和高效的表型设置将保障拟议研究的稳健性。这项工作和由此产生的数据将创建一个极好的平台，以培训具有先进的分子和定量数据分析技能的HQP。

Food is a cornerstone of a stable and prosperous civilization. Most staple foods and vegetable oils come from seeds. Ensuring seed yield and quality is a pressing need because of the ongoing climate change and a growing world population. Grains and oilseeds are the most significant components of farm cash receipts in Canada. Therefore, understanding seed biology is also vital for the economy. ******My long-term goal is to improve seed quality and yield. Decades of physiological characterizations and genetic studies of seeds have generated a remarkable pool of knowledge and many significant open questions. My short-term objectives are to answer some of these questions using systems approaches. Objective 1 aims to understand how a set of core transcription factors (TFs) and transcriptional regulators (TRs) coordinate the expression of thousands of genes during seed development in a model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana. Objective 2 will address how to precisely modulate gene expression in a tissue-specific manner in seeds. Objective 3 aims to translate knowledge from Arabidopsis to canola, an essential crop in Canada, and to pinpoint discoveries immediately relevant to agriculture. The robustness of the proposed study will be safeguarded by novel experimental designs, high-throughput sequencing technologies, and efficient phenotyping setups. The work and resulting data will create an excellent platform to train HQPs with both advanced molecular and quantitative data analysis skills.