The improvement of crop salt tolerance is a pressing agricultural challenge because salt stress poses a major threat to global food supply. Compelling evidence indicates that repeated stresses provide a memory to increase tolerance, but the mechanisms are not well understood.
This project studied the role of jasmonates (JAs) in priming salt stress memory in barley, one of the most important cereals worldwide for food, malt and animal feed.
The main Scientific Objective was to determine the involvement of JAs in priming salt stress tolerance, driving the plant to memorize information on stress exposure and ultimately to overcome the limits that stresses impose on growth and yield.
This has been achieved mainly by determining the correlation between transcriptional and posttranslational regulation during growth (inhibition) associated with stress adaptation and through characterization of the dependency of the responses on key regulators.
The following main training objectives were also achieved
Training through research. The work was carried out by the fellow, based at the host Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL), in collaboration with the host at the John Innes Centre (JIC, UK). During this time the fellow was trained in state-of-the-art technology as planned to include barley transformation and CRISPR/CAS as well state of the art qPCR, ChIP, high throughput phenomics using Li-COR systems. The interdisciplinary research involved collaboration with Earth Science Department at RHUL, that is fully equipped for ICP-AES (atomic emission spectroscopy) and ICP-MS (mass spectrometry). The fellow was also trained in measuring the different phytohormone levels in different plant tissues using high resolution GC-MS lab at Imperial College London. The activities also provided new networks through collaborators towards sustainable global agriculture.
Transferable skills training. The fellow acquired knowledge and hands-on training on this modern biotechnological tool. The fellow also attended UKRRC Early Career Researcher Workshop-2023 that was held at University of Essex. Moreover, the fellow will also participate in the international conference, Sustainable Enhancement of Plant Productivity with Precision Genomics (SEP3G), organized by the PI (Devoto) at the Host institution, RHUL, in December 2023 that will further extend collaboration between Europe and Japan. The meetings exposed the fellow to different academia and industry members.
Communication, outreach activities and horizontal skills training. The fellow was actively involved in organizing laboratory activities for students and visitors supporting the supervisor (see also (Supervisor activity) also in pastoral care to address gender and race imbalance (TO4-Training dedicated to gender and equality issues)
