RESEARCH-PGR: Cycling to low-temperature tolerance

研究-PGR：循环到耐低温

• 批准号: 2332611
• 负责人: Rebecca Roston
• 金额: $ 180万
• 依托单位: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-05-01 至 2027-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2332611&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RESEARCH; PGR; Cycling; low; temperature

Unseasonal cold spells annually cause significant losses in crops, impacting global food security and constraining growing ranges. This project focuses on understanding how sorghum, a low-input crop highly tolerant to drought and heat, can be made more resilient to low temperatures. Drawing inspiration from the natural circadian clock of plants and its connections to cold tolerance genes, daily fluctuations in transcripts, lipids, and metabolites crucial for low temperature tolerance are explored in Panicoid grasses, the plant family to which sorghum and maize belong. Improving sorghum's low temperature tolerance could enhance agricultural sustainability in the U.S. Great Plains, mitigating the impact of unseasonal cold spells on crop yields. Additionally, current efforts to enhance low-temperature tolerance in crops comes at a cost to their overall health. This project challenges traditional approaches to measuring and engineering low temperature tolerance in crops, by exploring the daily rhythms of plant responses to temperature changes. It has the potential to reshape how cold tolerance is understood and engineered in multiple crops. To raise public awareness of plant behaviors that change with daily rhythms, an interactive exhibit showcasing plant diurnal behaviors and their connection to low temperature tolerance will be created in collaboration with the Nebraska State Museum. This exhibit, reaching Nebraskan rural schools through a traveling display, aims to inform and engage the public in the importance of these scientific discoveries for agriculture and food security.The long-term goal of this project is to identify methods to mitigate fitness costs associated with increasing cold tolerance of sorghum through rhythmic regulation. To achieve this, a comparative analysis is conducted between sorghum and close genetic relative foxtail millet, which exhibits greater cold tolerance. The primary hypotheses driving the research are twofold: 1) The identification of key rhythmic transcripts and metabolites essential for cold tolerance in Panicoid grasses remains incomplete, and 2) The fitness cost associated with cold tolerance mechanisms can be counteracted through rhythmic expression. These hypotheses are supported by preliminary data and tested through two objectives. First, identify novel transcripts and lipid and soluble metabolites critical to cold tolerance by their rhythmic response to cold. Building upon strong rhythmicity observed in transcript and lipid abundances in Panicoid grasses during preliminary investigations, this objective uses a combination of multiple omics and rhythmicity analyses to reveal previously unrecognized metabolic and transcriptional modules influencing low-temperature tolerance. Identified module regulators will be expressed and tested for low-temperature tolerance in Arabidopsis as a proof of concept. Second, determine the extent of clock control of low temperature tolerance and identify promoter tools. Clock function is disrupted genetically in sorghum and by continuous light exposure in foxtail millet to assess their impact on low-temperature tolerance. Potentially rhythmic promoters from the cold-tolerant foxtail millet will also be tested in the susceptible sorghum species to establish tools for tolerance engineering.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.

非季节性寒潮每年都会造成农作物重大损失，影响全球粮食安全并限制种植范围。该项目的重点是了解如何使高粱（一种高度耐受干旱和高温的低投入作物）变得更能适应低温。从植物的自然生物钟及其与耐寒基因的联系中汲取灵感，在高粱和玉米所属的植物科黍草中探索了对低温耐受性至关重要的转录本、脂质和代谢物的每日波动。提高高粱的低温耐受性可以增强美国大平原农业的可持续性，减轻反季节寒潮对农作物产量的影响。此外，目前增强作物耐低温能力的努力是以牺牲其整体健康为代价的。该项目通过探索植物对温度变化的日常反应节奏，挑战了测量和设计农作物耐低温能力的传统方法。它有可能重塑多种作物耐寒性的理解和设计方式。为了提高公众对随日常节奏变化的植物行为的认识，将与内布拉斯加州博物馆合作创建一个互动展览，展示植物的昼间行为及其与低温耐受性的联系。该展览通过巡回展览的方式到达内布拉斯加州的农村学校，旨在让公众了解这些科学发现对农业和粮食安全的重要性。该项目的长期目标是找到减轻与健康相关的成本的方法。通过节律调节提高高粱的耐寒性。为了实现这一目标，我们对高粱和具有更强耐寒性的近亲谷子进行了比较分析。推动这项研究的主要假设有两个：1）对黍科草耐冷所必需的关键节律转录本和代谢物的鉴定仍然不完整，2）与耐冷机制相关的适应性成本可以通过节律表达来抵消。这些假设得到了初步数据的支持，并通过两个目标进行了测试。首先，通过对寒冷的节律反应来识别对耐冷性至关重要的新转录物以及脂质和可溶性代谢物。基于在初步调查期间在黍类草中观察到的转录本和脂质丰度的强节律性，该目标结合多种组学和节律性分析来揭示以前未被识别的影响低温耐受性的代谢和转录模块。确定的模块调节器将在拟南芥中表达和测试低温耐受性，作为概念证明。其次，确定耐低温时钟控制的程度并确定启动子工具。高粱的生物钟功能受到基因破坏，小米的生物钟功能受到持续光照的破坏，以评估其对低温耐受性的影响。来自耐寒谷子的潜在节律启动子也将在易受影响的高粱品种中进行测试，以建立耐受性工程的工具。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持标准。