Plants are the principle solar energy converter sustaining life on Earth. To optimize their carbon dioxide consumption and bio-energy production, plants must rapidly acclimate to changes in their environment, as well as respond to a diverse array of biological challenges. Being sessile organisms, plants evolved sophisticated mechanisms to cope with biotic and abiotic challenges in their environment. These can be activated in local tissues that initially interact with the threat, as well as in systemic tissues that were not yet challenged. The activation of defense or acclimation mechanisms in systemic non-challenged tissues is often termed systemic acquired resistance, or systemic acquired acclimation, and serves an important role in preventing further infection or damage to the entire plant during stress. Fundamental mechanisms underlying rapid systemic signaling in response to different environmental stresses in plants are however largely unknown.
The long-term goal of this project is to determine the mechanism and mode of regulation of rapid systemic signaling in plants. Dissecting the rapid systemic signaling pathway of plants will identify key regulators that will be used to enhance the tolerance of different crops and plants to global climatic changes, potentially preventing yield losses estimated at 30-40 billions of dollars annually in the US.
This project will involve educational outreach for K-12 and multidisciplinary training to graduate and undergraduate trainees. Undergraduate students will be trained in different aspects of signal transduction, genetics and bioinformatics analysis. A summer outreach workshop will teach high school students about molecular biology, signal transduction, the environment, and modern agriculture. This laboratory-based internship program will provide self-confidence building experiences and expose the students to laboratories and scientists. Both undergraduate and K-12 outreach and training activities will target the under privileged and underrepresented in science.
Federal Award ID: 1063287 Plants are rooted in one place and cannot run away or hide from an attack by an insect, a bacterial or viral pathogen, or from changes in weather conditions such as heat, cold or drought. To survive, plants evolved different mechanisms and physical structures that enable them to protect themselves from these biotic or abiotic dangers. A key process that improves the survival of plants in the face of many of these environmental dangers is the ability of different plant cells to communicate with each other. In our work we have uncovered a novel cell-to-cell communication mechanism that plants use to send alert signals from one leaf to the entire plant. This type of response is called a systemic response (that is a response that starts in one leaf and spreads to the entire plant). Surprisingly, the response we uncovered is very rapid and enables the signal to travel at a rate of up to 8 centimeter per minute (about 3 inch per minute). We have showed that this new signaling mechanism, called the ROS wave (for the molecule that mediate the signal = Reactive Oxygen Species, ROS), is important for plant tolerance to heat or light stresses and that the signals works together with different plant hormones. A youtube movie describing some of our findings can be found in this link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5QNEsvVnUU Our findings open a new window into the understanding of plant and animal cell-to-cell communication mechanism and would have a significant impact on many agricultural and medical fields.
