Descripción del proyecto
Diseñar plantas resistentes a las enfermedades y preparadas para el futuro
El fitomejoramiento en favor de la resistencia a enfermedades es clave en el cultivo de plantas que puedan resistir a los agentes patógenos, y es fundamental para entender cómo los sistemas inmunitarios de las plantas funcionan a fin de acelerar los programas fitomejoramiento para lograr la precisión inmunitaria. Varias investigaciones anteriores llevadas a cabo con métodos de biología de sistemas han desvelado elementos ocultos. El proyecto R-ELEVATION, financiado con fondos europeos, estudiará cómo el reconocimiento de los agentes patógenos por parte de los receptores inmunitarios de las plantas se transforma en cambios de la expresión génica de defensa, lo cual da lugar a una inmunidad eficaz. El objetivo principal es desarrollar herramientas sólidas para luchar contra fitopatógenos. Los resultados del proyecto facilitarán el desarrollo de estrategias de gestión, incluido el uso de rasgos seleccionables para el fitomejoramiento.
Objetivo
Plant diseases are widespread and constitute a major threat to food production. Understanding the molecular mechanisms by which plants resist pathogens is essential to design better strategies for protecting crops from diseases. Strict regulation of plant defense gene expression plays a critical role in establishing an effective and fine-tuned immune response; their insufficient expression leads to diseases, while their overexpression can result in autoimmunity and severe fitness penalties. My own recent work using systems biology approaches reveals hidden components inferred by defense gene regulatory networks as essential players in plant immunity. The next challenge lies in establishing how the recognition of pathogens by plant immune receptors is converted to changes in defense gene expression and results in effective immunity. In particular, it is unknown how defense gene regulatory mechanisms are dynamically regulated, whether the mechanisms are shared by different plant species, and how different types of plant cells respond to pathogen attacks. My long-term goal is to develop robust tools to control plant pathogens. To tackle these challenging questions, the R-ELEVATION program addresses three core objectives:
1. Determine how master transcription factors regulate the expression of defense genes.
2. Identify and characterize new and conserved regulatory components during immune activation.
3. Elucidate and compare cell-type-specific gene regulatory networks between resistant and susceptible plants.
With my team, I aim to advance the fundamental understanding of dynamic gene regulatory mechanisms during plant immune activation that are conserved in different plant species. I additionally aim to revolutionize plant protection strategies at the cell-type-specific level. Translating our results into crop plants will enable the development of management strategies, including selectable traits for plant breeding, for more durable and fine-tunable resistance.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
- plant innate immunity
- transcriptional regulation
- chromatin accessibility
- gene expression
- transcription factors
- protein-protein interactions
- histone remodellers
- transcriptomics
- RNA-seq
- ATAC-seq
- gene regulatory networks
- bioinformatics
- statistics
- mathematical modeling
- multi-omics
- comparative network analysis
- next-generation sequencing
- single-cell technologies
- single-nucleus RNA-seq
- single-nucleus ATAC-seq
- time-series datasets
Programa(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Régimen de financiación
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsInstitución de acogida
2311 EZ Leiden
Países Bajos