I-Corps: Effective protection against damage to crops in drought conditions.

Howard University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Development of crop plants that can withstand drought and salt stresses is at the forefront of plant science-based scientific endeavors. Genetic modification-based approaches have shown the potential to develop such plants, however, inherent complications and lack of wide spread acceptability of GMO foods hinder advancement. A transformative idea would be to regulate environmental stress responses in crop plants by applying fertilizer-like small compounds. In this proposal, the team has developed a series of potentially valuable agrichemicals that should help with drought tolerance, so there could be very substantial commercial potential for the products. The PI and his team have isolated dozens of small compounds targeting the functional domain of a well characterized scaffold protein RACK1A in the model plant Arabidopsis. One of the compounds- SD29 has shown to confer drought/salt stress resistance in the model plant Arabidopsis. In addition preliminary studies have shown that it protects under other stress conditions as well. Another compound developed can enable crop plants to maintain photosynthesis even under environmental stresses like drought/salt stresses. Considering the global climate change and effort to increase biomass for biofuel production, the proposed chemical compounds have great potential to contribute in many economic and environmental fronts. The successful demonstration of this new RACK1 inhibitors chemical provides safe and effective protection against damage to crops in drought/salty conditions.