ABSTRACT

At a time when food security is challenged by diminishing freshwater resources and other environmental stresses that threaten modern agriculture, developing crops better adapted for stresses such as drought, cold, high heat, or saline-, toxic- and nutrient-poor soils is imperative. Plants that grow in naturally harsh environments present novel genetic resources for understanding their adaptations to multiple environmental stresses. Recent advances in genomic sciences enable the use of such wild species to identify unique gene functions that can be introduced to elite crop cultivars to help meet global agricultural needs. The goal of this project is to develop a molecular toolkit for two such wild plants that can be premier models for investigating how plants tolerate environmental stresses without significant yield losses, and how such traits can be integrated successfully into current crops. Project aims include developing methods to detect genes controlling these traits in the wild plants, targeting specific gene products to uesful tissue or cell types, and effectively monitoring gene function as an essential step to assessing the suitability of transferring these gene functions from a wild plant to a crop. This project will also provide training to graduate students and research scientists to use these new tools, and aims to inspire the next generation of plant researchers from K-12 through undergraduate students to look for genetic innovations yet to be discovered in wild plants.

Deducing genome to phenome functional relationships is among the predominant goals of biological research, yet a large gap exists in our understanding of how plants adapt to environmental stress. Extremophytes are unique in their biology and exhibit many, naturally-selected adaptations to stresses, thus showing great promise for understanding genetic mechanisms to develop crops better adapted to varying environments. Two emerging extremophyte models, Schrenkiella parvula and Eutrema salsugineum, grow remarkably well under multiple environmental stresses compared to the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana and most crops. Despite the availability of high-quality genomes for these extremophytes, their use in basic research is constrained by a lack of functional genomic tools and inadequate analytical infrastructure capable of integrating different data types. The goal is to develop functional genomics tools to enable the wider use of extremophytes for discovering genetic mechanisms for stress adaptation. Methods will be developed to improve transformation efficiency and targeted manipulation of the extremophyte genomes. The project will create tools to enable investigation of cell-type specific gene functions via single cell transcriptomics and the development of genetically encoded biosensors and provide a computational platform to study extremophyte gene functions. The entire team of investigators will be committed to a number of activities including workshops organized at international and regional plant science meetings and production of detailed online tutorials, to provide training and increase awareness of the resources generated in this project. The work also includes timely dissemination of the resources developed, as well as integrated educational outreach activities.

This award is co-funded by the Enabling Discovery through GEnomic tools (EDGE) Program and the Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP) in the Division of Integrated Organismal Systems

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.