400 Million Years of Food Transport in Plants: unearthing the origin, diversity and genetic toolkit of vasculature

植物中 4 亿年的食物运输：挖掘脉管系统的起源、多样性和遗传工具包

• 批准号: MR/Y03399X/1
• 负责人: Alexander Hetherington
• 金额: $ 75.88万
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FY03399X%2F1
• 关键词: 400; Million; Years; Food; Transport

Plants transport sugars around their bodies in the specialised tissue termed the phloem. The phloem is essential for plant life and underpins the growth and survival of all economically important plants, whether crop or forest species. Given how important the phloem is for plant life it might be predicted that we would have a good understanding of its evolution. However, despite the vital role the phloem plays in living species our understanding of phloem evolution is rudimentary. Key questions remain unanswered including: (i) when did the phloem originate, (ii) how has its structure, function and genetic toolkit evolved over the past 400 million years, (iii) how has phloem evolution been driven by climate change?In this project we are answering these major questions and fundamentally increasing our understanding of phloem evolution over geological time. To achieve this we are working on three specific objectives:1. Defining the origin of the phloem in land plants2. Revealing major evolutionary innovations in phloem structure and function in relation to climatic change through geological time.3. Characterising the genetic innovations that underpinned the diversification of the phloemIn the initial stage of the Future Leaders Fellowship we have made substantial progress to achieving these objectives and are poised to make new discoveries that will change our understanding of phloem evolution. In the renewal phase of the Fellowship we will continue on our path to achieve these objectives and answer the overarching questions about phloem evolution. We will greatly expand on our objective to characterise the genetic innovations that underpinned the diversification of the phloem, with a broad scale approach to characterise the expression of genes involved in phloem development in ferns and lycophytes and aim to discover novel regulators of the phloem development in lycophytes.Collectively the outcome of the project will make a step change in our understanding of phloem evolution over the last 400 million year and demonstrate the added benefit of taking an interdisciplinary approach, combining studies of living plants, fossils and genetic networks together to answer major questions in plant evolution.

植物在称为韧皮部的特殊组织中将糖输送到身体各处。韧皮部对于植物生命至关重要，是所有经济上重要植物（无论是农作物还是森林物种）生长和生存的基础。鉴于韧皮部对植物生命的重要性，可以预测我们将对它的进化有很好的了解。然而，尽管韧皮部在生物物种中发挥着至关重要的作用，但我们对韧皮部进化的理解还很初级。关键问题仍未得到解答，包括：(i) 韧皮部何时起源，(ii) 其结构、功能和遗传工具包在过去 4 亿年中是如何进化的，(iii) 韧皮部进化是如何受到气候变化驱动的？通过该项目，我们正在回答这些主要问题，并从根本上增进我们对地质时期韧皮部演化的理解。为了实现这一目标，我们正在努力实现三个具体目标：1。定义陆地植物韧皮部的起源2。揭示韧皮部结构和功能与地质时期气候变化相关的重大进化创新。3．表征支撑韧皮部多样化的遗传创新在未来领袖奖学金的初始阶段，我们在实现这些目标方面取得了实质性进展，并准备做出新的发现，从而改变我们对韧皮部进化的理解。在奖学金的更新阶段，我们将继续实现这些目标并回答有关韧皮部进化的首要问题。我们将极大地扩展我们的目标，即表征支撑韧皮部多样化的遗传创新，采用广泛的方法来表征蕨类植物和石松植物中参与韧皮部发育的基因的表达，并旨在发现韧皮部发育的新调节因子。总的来说，该项目的成果将彻底改变我们对过去 4 亿年韧皮部进化的理解，并证明了采用跨学科方法，将活植物、化石和遗传网络的研究结合起来，回答植物进化的主要问题。