NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2015

Frank Margaret, St. Louis MO

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 Margaret Frank is, "A role for long-distance RNA signaling in tomato via graft-induced vigor." The host institution for the fellowship is the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Daniel Chitwood. Increasing crop yield in the face of bad growing conditions, whether from pests and diseases or because it is too hot and dry, is a central problem in agriculture. Grafting, a technique that combines the shoots of one plant with the roots of another, has been used for over 2,000 years to bring together ideal combinations of roots and shoots, thus allowing plants to grow in sub-optimal conditions, increase yield, and improve crop quality. In tomato, shoots that are grafted onto hybrid roots (resulting from crossing different tomato species) show increased yield. This proposed research is to understand how roots communicate with shoots, and to find the genetic combinations of roots and shoots that act together to increase yield. Broader impacts include training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, the participation of the Fellow in career-building workshops, as well as the development of a teaching module that combines time-lapse imaging with community gardening for Saint Louis elementary schools that serve groups who are underrepresented in STEM fields. Training objectives include genomics, bioinformatics, quantitative genetics, and field phenotyping. Although recent experimental evidence suggests that non-cell autonomous long-distance signals may play an important role in the mechanism through which grafting impacts plant growth and physiology, the precise connection between these signals and yield remains poorly understood, and even largely unexplored. In this project, this connection will be explored by conducting a series of experiments linking the physiological and architectural hallmarks of grafted tomato plants to the organ-specific molecular signatures of native as well non-cell autonomous graft-transmissible messenger RNA- and small RNA profiles. In parallel with traditional quantitative trait locus mapping of grafting-induced vigor, the data will be used to identify candidate genes that function in a non-cell autonomous manner to drive improvements in solanaceous crop performance. Discoveries from this research will be disseminated through presentations at top tier conferences, publication in peer-reviewed journals, and submission of data to the following public repositories: NCBI Sequence Read Archive (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra), NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/) and the SOL Genomics Network (http://solgenomics.net/). The teaching module will be shared on the Donald Danforth Center Maker Group (http://maker.danforthcenter.org/pages/about.html) and Planting Science websites (http://www.plantingscience.org/).