NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology: Identifying Mechanisms of Plant Symbiosis Control Through Virus Induced Mutant Stacking (VIMS)

NSF 生物学博士后奖学金：通过病毒诱导突变体堆积 (VIMS) 识别植物共生控制机制

• 批准号: 2305688
• 负责人: Evan Ellison
• 金额: $ 24.9万
• 依托单位: Ellison, Evan E
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-01 至 2026-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2305688&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Postdoctoral; Fellowship; Biology; Identifying

The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Dr. Evan Ellison is “Identifying Mechanisms of Plant Symbiosis Control Through Virus Induced Mutant Stacking (VIMS)”. The host institution for the fellowship is the University of Cambridge and the sponsoring scientist is Prof. Giles E.D. Oldroyd.To sustain and expand food production in a growing global population, next generation crop varieties must be developed that take advantage of natural systems to improve nutrient capture rather than rely on excessive application of inorganic nutrients. Fortunately, most crop species can greatly improve their ability to capture and use essential nutrients through symbiotic relationships with beneficial soil fungi. This symbiosis, however, is restricted if high concentrations of nitrogen or phosphorus have been applied to the soil, limiting the utility. The goal of this research is to characterize unknown signals that regulate symbiosis under high nutrient conditions; thereby identifying crop genotypes that use less input while maintaining high productivity. This project also seeks to democratize and remove financial, geographic and time limitations of large-scale genome editing projects, which is critical for international molecular plant improvement. Broader impacts from this project include generating genetic and technological resources for the plant science community, educating citizen scientists interested in how gene editing contributes to reducing fertilizer use, and translating results for crop improvement and sustainable food production. Training objectives include obtaining hands-on expertise in applying genetic and genomic tools to address biologically important questions. Split root experiments suggest that nutrient suppression of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis exists through largely unknown systemic process in addition to local mechanisms. Secreted peptides have been demonstrated to be a critical component of systemic symbiosis regulation and nutrient response. This research will characterize systemic peptides that regulate symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi in response to differential nutrient conditions. Connecting multiple environmental conditions to their signaling response will be accomplished by developing a new method of Viral Induced Mutant Stacking to rapidly stack targeted mutations across a population. This novel genetic screening technique will be applied to create a combinatorial population of peptide mutants and isolate genetic backgrounds enabling symbiosis under nutrient suppressive conditions. Mutant populations and genetic engineering reagents generated during this project will be immediately available to researchers for independent investigations. New technology developed in this research can be used to study complex, integrated, phenotypic responses while providing valuable insight into the systemic regulation of symbiosis. Causal alleles identified using this approach can quickly be incorporated into agriculturally relevant species for rapid crop improvement. All data, genetic and molecular resources, and methodological advances will be made freely available to the general scientific community through public long-term repositories and upon request.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.

这项与埃文·埃里森（Evan Ellison）博士的研究和培训计划的标题是“通过病毒诱发的突变堆积（VIMS）来确定植物共生控制的机制。剑桥大学的主机机构是剑桥大学，并且赞助科学家是giles E.D. Oldroyd的发展，即在自然中提高粮食生产，而不是景点的近代人，这是景点的发展。除了依靠无机养分的依赖，大多数农作物可以通过与有益的土壤真菌的共生关系来提高其捕获和使用必需品的能力在维持高生产力的同时，使用较少的投入的基因型也旨在消除大型基因组编辑项目的财务，地理和时间限制，这对于植物科学社区的遗传和技术资源的培训对培训的培训和贡献量很大物体包括实现遗传和基因组工具来解决生物学上重要的问题。对差异性养分条件的反应，将多种环境条件与他们的信号反应相关的响应在本项目中产生的基因工程试剂将立即用于研究中的独立研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，可通过公共长期存储库来提供通用科学界，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准的评估来支持的。