Modern agriculture relies on crops that have been carefully tailored for environments by selective breeding. In this regard, phytochromes are an attractive target for such modifications, because they are key regulators of plant growth and development in response to light and shade. As such, phytochromes have been targets of conventional breeding programs aimed to improve germination, seedling establishment, leaf development, and flowering time. Recently, a novel dominant, constitutively activated allele of phytochrome B (YHB) in Arabidopsis has been identified whose expression impacts all of these processes. The overall goal of this EAGER project is to exploit the ability of YHB alleles for selective regulation of photomorphogenic programs in transgenic plants and to engineer these alleles for use as a plant-derived, antibiotic-free genetic selection marker in Medicago and Brassica species. The specific aims are to (1) characterize and exploit spatial and temporal regulation of YHB expression to selectively regulate phytochrome responses in plants; and, (2) develop and exploit YHB vectors as plant-derived, chemical-free selection marker for in planta and tissue culture-based genetic selection. If successful, this project will provide new insight into phytochrome function that may have potential broad impact for the improvement of crop plants.
In addition to providing training opportunities for a postdoctoral research associate, the project will participate in the UC Davis Community College Access to Research Experiences for Undergraduates (CCAT-REU) program that provides research training internships to community college students. If successful, the project is expected to generate and publically distribute new methods and findings through publications/presentations and through NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus. All plant and DNA materials generated by this work will be distributed to all requestors for no charge with appropriate MTA agreements approved by the UC Davis Office of Technology Transfer.
