PI: Joseph Kieber (University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill)
CoPIs: G. Eric Schaller (Dartmouth College) and Ann Loraine (University of North Carolina - Charlotte)
Cytokinins are plant hormones that regulate many traits of agricultural importance, including the control of grain size and yield. In this project, genomic approaches will be used to uncover how cytokinin regulates growth and development in rice, using this plant species as a model to understand the regulation of grain size and yield in all cereals. Computational approaches will be used to interrogate and integrate the datasets generated by these studies. It is expected that these studies will illuminate the role of cytokinins in panicle development, and will provide specific information on how cytokinins regulate grain development in an agriculturally important crop. Because of conservation of gene sequence among cereals, information obtained from the study of rice may be applied to other agriculturally important species such as maize, wheat, barley, rye, and sorghum.
This project will enhance the infrastructure of research and education by providing training for undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-doctoral researchers. A computation workshop will broaden the ability of the research community to use genomics resources. In addition, through partnerships with local groups including the Montshire Museum of Science (http://montshire.org/), programs aimed at fostering science education in grades K-12 will be created and maintained. Data will be made available through a public database (RiceCytokinin.org) as well as through long-term repositories such as the NCBI Short Read Archive (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra/) and the Gene Expression Omnibus (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/). Germplasm generated in this project will be available upon request and through the USDA Genetic Stocks - Oryza (GSOR) Collection (www.ars.usda.gov/Main/site_main.htm?docid=18992&page=1).
