Genomic Architecture of Maize Ethylene Response During Germination

Strable Joshua, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF National Plant Genome Initiative Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2017. 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 host institution for the fellowship is the Cornell University and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Michael Scanlon. One approach to promote food security in a fluctuating climate is to identify and develop climate-resilient crops. Maize is an indispensable food source and industrial feedstock for much of the world. Maize is susceptible to stress, such as heat, drought and flooding. Ethylene is a key regulator of plant growth, development and stress response; however, neither the genetic control of ethylene growth response nor its natural variation are understood in maize. Knowledge of the genetic architecture of ethylene response will enable future engineering efforts on ethylene-mediated stress tolerance in the cereals. Broader impacts include the formation of interactive programs to increase public genetic and genomic literacy. The Fellow will teach core concepts in genetics and genomics to participants outside of STEM fields. Participants, in turn, will interpret this into public art that communicates genetic principles. Training objectives for the Fellow include gaining proficiency in plant genomics, association mapping and bioinformatics. This research will evaluate the genomic architecture of ethylene growth response in maize. The ethylene response is an important target for crop adaptation to climate. The Fellow will conduct genome wide association studies to investigate the allelic architecture of maize ethylene response, and will identify transcriptomic networks and chromatin signatures associated with ethylene treatment. The proposed research has significant potential to discover key alleles and genomic regions in maize that underlie stress tolerance associated with ethylene. This work will provide a foundation for future investigations on the underlying mechanisms of ethylene response in maize and in other economically vital cereals. Research outcomes will be shared with the public and research community through conferences, in publications and by submissions to data repositories: phenotypic data to Panzea (http://www.panzea.org), raw sequence data to NCBI-SRA (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra), and gene expression data to NCBI-GEO (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo), Maize Genetics and Genomics Database (http://www.maizegdb.org), and qTeller (http://qteller.com).