Research Initiation Award: SIGNAL INTERACTIONS BETWEEN LIGHT AND OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSES IN PLANTS

Albany State University, Albany GA

Investigators

Abstract

Albany State University's Research Initiation Award entitled - Signal Interactions Between Light and Other Environmental Responses in Plants - will address the question of how the integration of different signals takes place in an organism using Arabidopsis as a model system. Most biological studies focus on responses to a single stimulus. However, growing evidence suggests that responses to different stimuli can crosstalk and affect each other. The project will conduct various morphological and physiological characterizations under two factor variable conditions to identify response interaction at the phenotypic level. Then similar phenotypic and molecular analyses will be carried out using existing mutants with defects in light or stress signaling to identify the interaction point in the signaling pathways. Microarray analysis and real-time RT-PCR will be carried out to investigate the interaction at the gene expression level using plant samples grown under two factor variable conditions. The long-term goal and the potential application of the project is to facilitate the breeding of crop plants for improved drought, heat, cold, and salt tolerance by uncovering how enhancements in environmental stress tolerance constrain plant light response that affects productivity, and vice versa. The information obtained from the research has the potential to strengthen our knowledge of plant survival and productivity. Undergraduate students will be exposed to a variety of experimental approaches from phenotypic characterization to molecular study and to genetic/genomic level analysis. They will learn how to analyze and validate scientific data statistically, and publish and present their results at scientific meetings.