Projektbeschreibung
Wichtige Regulatoren ermitteln, welche die Architektur von Pflanzengefäßsystemen bestimmen
Gefäßsysteme von Landpflanzen bilden wie menschliche Gefäßsysteme ein kompliziertes Netzwerk aus leitenden Geweben, welche die Organe verbinden und Wasser, Mineralien, Nährstoffe und Signalmoleküle transportieren. Nicht-Gefäßpflanzen wie Moose besitzen leitfähige Gewebe, die homolog zu Gefäßgeweben in Gefäßpflanzen zu sein scheinen. Es bleiben jedoch viele offene Fragen zu den molekularen Regulatoren der Entwicklung von leitfähigem und vaskulärem Gewebe. Das EU-finanzierte Projekt PIPELINES wird konservierte Moleküle identifizieren, die spezifisch für vaskuläres und leitfähiges Gewebe sind, und den angestammten Satz von Regulatoren bestimmen, der ausreicht, um Spezifikations- und Differenzierungsereignisse in Pflanzen auszulösen. Die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse werden die Gewebezüchtung für zahlreiche Anwendungen unterstützen.
Ziel
Plants contribute up to 80% of all biomass on earth. Despite their staggering diversity; dominant land plants share a highly important characteristic: the presence of a vascular system providing physical support and long distance transport. This is however not a simple binary trait, as some non-vascular mosses contain cells with conductive capacity resembling that of vascular plants. Available evidence indeed suggests that conductive tissues of non-vascular plants are functionally homologous to vascular tissues in vascular plants and can even be compared at a molecular level. However, the molecular players involved in conductive tissue development remain almost completely unknown. Moreover, although key molecular regulators of vascular tissue development have been identified in the model plant Arabidopsis, very few are shown to be functionally conserved across vascular plants. Despite their importance for growth and development, we thus have a limited understanding of the evolutionary conserved regulators of plant plumbing systems.
In PIPELINES, I will consolidate my expertise in single-cell applications and build a dedicated team to identify conserved molecular players specific to vascular and conductive tissues by combining multi-species comparative single-cell and spatial transcriptomics with gene regulatory network inference; and characterize these factors using loss-of-function approaches. By comparing this data, I will determine the ancestral set of regulators sufficient to trigger specification and differentiation events in plants; and validate these through introduction of single-cell sample multiplexing in a heterologous system.
By unravelling the molecular basis of vascular and conductive tissue development and identifying conserved core developmental regulators, the output of PIPELINES will act as a starting point for targeted engineering of vascular tissues; which holds great potential for improving plant biomass and productivity in crop species.
Wissenschaftliches Gebiet
Schlüsselbegriffe
Programm/Programme
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Thema/Themen
Finanzierungsplan
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsGastgebende Einrichtung
9052 ZWIJNAARDE - GENT
Belgien