Obiettivo The rapidly changing climate puts commonly used crop plants under strong pressure. It is therefore essential to develop novel breeding technologies to rapidly enhance crops to better withstand newly emerging stresses.Interestingly, a clear link between transposable elements (TEs), crop improvement and varietal diversification exists. Furthermore, in recent years the importance of (TEs) in evolution and adaptation to stresses has been recognized. However the use of TEs in crop breeding is currently very limited because it is not possible to control TE mobility. My research group has identified a novel highly conserved epigenetic silencing mechanism that represses the activity of TEs in Arabidopsis. We also found drugs capable of inhibiting this mechanism. Because these drugs target highly conserved enzymes we were able to show that our drug treatment is also effective in rice. We are therefore able to produce TE bursts in a controlled manner in virtually any plant. We can thus, for the first time, generate and study TE bursts in crop plants in real time. More importantly, we found that the accumulation of novel insertions of a heat-stress inducible TE produced plants that, at a high frequency, were more resistant to heat stress. This suggests that the stress that was initially applied to activate a specific TE in the parent, lead to an improved tolerance to that specific stress in the progeny of that plant in a very straight-forward manner. In this project I propose to accelerate plant breeding by testing and implementing a revolutionary TE-directed crop improvement technology. For that I plan to 1. Mobilize TEs in crop plants using selected stresses 2. Using these mobilized stress-responsive TEs breed novel crop plants resistant to those selected stresses and 3. Study the genetic and epigenetic impact of TE mobilization on host genomes. This project will have a broad impact on crop improvement and on the basic understanding of the evolutionary importance of TEs. Campo scientifico scienze agricoleagricoltura, silvicoltura e pescaagricolturaagronomiamiglioramento delle piantescienze naturaliscienze biologichegeneticagenomiscienze naturaliscienze biologichebiochimicabiomolecoleproteineenzimiscienze naturaliscienze biologichegeneticaepigenetica Programma(i) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Argomento(i) ERC-2016-COG - ERC Consolidator Grant Invito a presentare proposte ERC-2016-COG Vedi altri progetti per questo bando Meccanismo di finanziamento ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant Coordinatore EIDGENOESSISCHES DEPARTEMENT FUER WIRTSCHAFT, BILDUNG UND FORSCHUNG Contribution nette de l'UE € 1 604 521,74 Indirizzo Bundeshaus ost 3003 Bern Svizzera Mostra sulla mappa Regione Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Espace Mittelland Bern / Berne Tipo di attività Public bodies (excluding Research Organisations and Secondary or Higher Education Establishments) Collegamenti Contatta l’organizzazione Opens in new window Partecipazione a programmi di R&I dell'UE Opens in new window Rete di collaborazione HORIZON Opens in new window Altri finanziamenti € 0,00 Beneficiari (2) Classifica in ordine alfabetico Classifica per Contributo netto dell'UE Espandi tutto Riduci tutto EIDGENOESSISCHES DEPARTEMENT FUER WIRTSCHAFT, BILDUNG UND FORSCHUNG Svizzera Contribution nette de l'UE € 1 604 521,74 Indirizzo Bundeshaus ost 3003 Bern Mostra sulla mappa Regione Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Espace Mittelland Bern / Berne Tipo di attività Public bodies (excluding Research Organisations and Secondary or Higher Education Establishments) Collegamenti Contatta l’organizzazione Opens in new window Partecipazione a programmi di R&I dell'UE Opens in new window Rete di collaborazione HORIZON Opens in new window Altri finanziamenti € 0,00 INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE POUR L'AGRICULTURE, L'ALIMENTATION ET L'ENVIRONNEMENT Partecipazione conclusa Francia Contribution nette de l'UE € 361 103,25 Indirizzo 147 rue de l'universite 75007 Paris Mostra sulla mappa Regione Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris Tipo di attività Research Organisations Collegamenti Contatta l’organizzazione Opens in new window Sito web Opens in new window Partecipazione a programmi di R&I dell'UE Opens in new window Rete di collaborazione HORIZON Opens in new window Altri finanziamenti € 0,00
