Dissecting the TOR Kinase Pathway in Plants: Linking the Stress Signals to Growth

Ohio State University Research Foundation -Do Not Use, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

Crop productivity is directly affected by environmental conditions and stresses such as drought and salinity significantly reduce yield. An improvement in a plant''s ability to withstand environmental stress is of fundamental importance, not only for US agriculture, but also in context of the emerging problem of global warming. Plants must optimize growth under nutritional limitations and stress to complete their life cycles. The Target of Rapamycin (TOR) kinase system is considered to be a central regulator of stress and nutritional signals in higher organisms. How these signals are prioritized and integrated to control protein synthesis (translation) and gene expression (transcription) is not well understood in any organism. Recent research in the PI''s laboratory has identified all major components of this pathway in plants and has demonstrated that an osmotic stress signal is controlled by this pathway via phosphorylation of one of the ribosomal proteins that controls protein synthesis. In addition, preliminary evidence indicates that plant hormones may also affect the TOR kinase pathway, thus providing a new approach for understanding how growth is regulated under stress. The goal of this newly funded research is to find a molecular link between the regulation of translation and transcription (particularly, ribosomal RNA) machineries in plants undergoing stress and thus provide insights into how plants acclimatize and adapt to a given environment. During the course of this research, graduate and undergraduate students will be trained and international collaborations will be forged.