Computational Approaches to Transcriptome Modeling and Applications to Plant Stress Regulation

Washington University, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

Washington University has been awarded a three year grant to study the expression of genes in plants under abiotic stress. The resulting understanding of stress response mechanisms will lead to understanding and potential interventions in crop yield loss attributable to drought, cold and salinity and develop methodologies for research of other stressors. These discoveries will be enabled through a set of machine learning and data mining tools that will allow for functional analysis of a large collection of previously generated gene expression data. The computational tools will be web accessible or may be installed by other researchers as standalone applications so that other research teams can apply the methods to new expression data as it becomes available. This project will identify cis-regulatory elements and motif modules. It will create models of transcription regulation as well as co-expression networks. The project will cooperate with the Washington University?s Science Outreach Program to provide professional development opportunities for K-12 teachers.