NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2015

Freese Nowlan H, Kannapolis NC

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF National Plant Genome Initiative Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2015. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow who also presents a plan to broaden participation in biology. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Nowlan Freese is "Regulation of stress response in salt-stressed rice through the modulation of alternative splicing by methylation." The host institution for the fellowship is the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Ann Loraine. A fifth of the world's daily calories come from rice. Changing environmental conditions can impact agricultural production significantly, and so it is particularly important to understand how rice plants respond and adapt to stress conditions. This project investigates how rice genomes respond to salt stress through changes in the DNA that alter the way gene information is passed on. The process, called "alternative splicing," alters parts of genes resulting in differences in gene products. This project will identify the molecular mechanisms that drive alternative splicing during salt stress, providing the foundational information for researchers to explore new frontiers in genomics and for breeders to develop salt tolerant varieties of rice in the future. The Fellow will be trained in bioinformatics, statistical data analysis, and methods in plant molecular biology. This project also provides information and research experience to high school students to facilitate understanding of basic science concepts in the relevant context of environmental change. In plants, exposure to abiotic stress triggers genome-wide changes in splicing patterns, enriching for stress-specific transcript isoforms. However, the mechanism through which stress pathways regulate splicing remains largely unknown. In rice, salt and other abiotic stresses alter DNA methylation, an epigenetic modification that can enhance stress tolerance. Evidence from animal systems suggests that DNA methylation within genes influences co-transcriptional splicing by defining intron/exon boundaries. This project will determine if a similar link exists in plants by investigating the connection between DNA methylation, alternative splicing, and stress response in salt-stressed rice. The objectives are to identify salt-induced isoforms that result from splicing in two rice varieties, investigate the role of methylation and identify specific splice variants. Data generated from this project will be publicly available at the National Center for Biotechnology Information's Sequence Read Archive - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra.