Coordinated Photoreceptor Engineering for Improved Biomass Production

协调光感受器工程以提高生物质生产

基本信息

批准号：
BB/V00056X/1
负责人：
John Christie
金额：
$ 62.85万
依托单位：
University of Glasgow
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2021 至无数据
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FV00056X%2F1
关键词：
Coordinated Photoreceptor Engineering Improved Biomass

项目摘要

A key challenge for plant biologists has been to increase plant yield by altering photosynthetic productivity to secure food, energy and environmental sustainability. Phototropin receptor kinases (phot1 and phot2) play an important role in this regard by coordinating multiple light-capturing processes. These include phototropism, chloroplast movements, leaf positioning, leaf expansion and stomatal opening all of which influence a plant's photosynthetic competence by improving the efficiency of light capture, reducing photodamage, and regulating gas exchange between leaves and the atmosphere. However, little effort has been made to target these pathways for improving biomass production. We have recently shown that targeted engineering can be used successfully to modify the light-sensing properties of the phototropins and increase their sensitivity to light. Plants with these engineered photoreceptors exhibit more rapid and robust chloroplast movement responses and improved leaf positioning and expansion, leading to over 2-fold increases biomass accumulation under light-limiting conditions. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of engineering photoreceptors for improved plant growth and offer additional opportunities for enhancing plant yield through increases in photosynthetic competence. This proposal capitalises on these findings and will use a combinatorial protein engineering strategy to better synchronise the actions of the phototropins more effectively over a wider range of light conditions without causing detrimental high-light stress. Design principles for better synchronisation between phototropin receptors will be established first in Arabidopsis and extended to crops using barley as a model. Thus, a major outcome of this interlinked effort will be to establish a structural and functional blueprint for constructing engineered photoreceptors that will provide a non-transgenic, genome editing-based approach to coordinate stepwise enhancements in photosynthetic performance with an aim to increasing crop yield. This work will concurrently generate new photoreceptor components with tailored photochemical properties that will have utility in generating synthetic protein-based switches designed to regulate target cellular activities by light. As our knowledge of phototropin receptor signalling is still far complete, this proposal will also exploit the availability of a novel desensitised photoreceptor mutant background, identified from our phototropin engineering work, to identify new components of phototropin signalling through genetic suppressor screening. Together, the fundamental and applied aspects of this research will expand our understanding of phototropin receptor function and harness the ability to fine tune their action as a bona fide means to modulate yield for agronomic gain.

植物生物学家面临的一个关键挑战是通过改变光合生产力来提高植物产量，以确保粮食、能源和环境的可持续性。向光素受体激酶（phot1 和 phot2）通过协调多个光捕获过程在这方面发挥着重要作用。这些包括向光性、叶绿体运动、叶片定位、叶片扩张和气孔开放，所有这些都通过提高光捕获效率、减少光损伤以及调节叶片与大气之间的气体交换来影响植物的光合作用能力。然而，针对这些改善生物质生产的途径几乎没有做出任何努力。我们最近表明，有针对性的工程可以成功地用于改变向光素的光传感特性并提高其对光的敏感性。具有这些工程光感受器的植物表现出更快速、更强大的叶绿体运动反应，并改善了叶子的定位和扩张，导致在光限制条件下生物量积累增加超过2倍。这些发现证明了通过改造光感受器来改善植物生长的可行性，并为通过提高光合作用能力来提高植物产量提供了额外的机会。该提案利用了这些发现，并将使用组合蛋白质工程策略，在更广泛的光照条件下更有效地同步趋光素的作用，而不会造成有害的高光应激。向光素受体之间更好同步的设计原则将首先在拟南芥中建立，并扩展到使用大麦作为模型的作物。因此，这一相互关联的努力的一个主要成果将是建立一个用于构建工程光感受器的结构和功能蓝图，该蓝图将提供一种非转基因、基于基因组编辑的方法来协调光合性能的逐步增强，以提高作物产量。这项工作将同时生成具有定制光化学特性的新光感受器组件，这些组件将可用于生成基于合成蛋白质的开关，旨在通过光调节目标细胞活动。由于我们对趋光素受体信号传导的了解还很完整，因此该提案还将利用从我们的趋光素工程工作中鉴定出的新型脱敏光感受器突变体背景的可用性，通过遗传抑制筛选来鉴定趋光素信号传导的新成分。总之，这项研究的基础和应用方面将扩大我们对向光素受体功能的理解，并利用微调其作用的能力作为调节产量以获得农艺收益的真正手段。