CAREER: Decoding differential protein phosphorylation patterns at the nexus between biotic and abiotic stress responses

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

Food stability is essential to societal stability, and to successfully provide for projected global food demands, increased crop production will be required. Reduction of crop losses to disease and pests is critical to this effort, with the challenge potentiated by environmental stresses. Sustaining a secure food supply will require integrated approaches, with strategic and robust enhancement of crop plant resistance playing an important role. To address this societal need of durable improvement of plant resistance to pests and pathogens this project will contribute to our (1) fundamental knowledge of conserved regulatory mechanisms controlling disease resistance across crop species, and an understanding of how these processes impact crop responses to other environmental stresses. To increase scientific accessibility to the larger community, research activities are integrated with an extensive educational plan designed to meet the needs of first-generation college transfer students and to promote awareness and excitement surrounding opportunities in the plant sciences and biology. This plan includes (1) Creation of the Research Opportunities and Orientation for Transfer Students (ROOTS) program to enhance transfer student retention in the sciences by training them in basic laboratory techniques and connecting them with research lab positions, (2) Expansion of a research-integrated undergraduate laboratory course to actively engage students in publishable research and (3) Partnership with a local community leader to support an elementary school community garden with plant-based educational enrichment activities. On the surface, pattern-triggered immunity is deceptively simple: recognition of foreign molecules by pattern recognition receptors activates signaling to modulate transcription and induce immune responses. In reality, the signaling network is exceedingly complex, with dynamic interconnected regulatory layers that cause broad reconfiguration of plant cellular processes. Understanding how this dynamic regulation of plant immune components occurs and intersects with other signaling pathways is essential for formulating strategies to enhance biotic resistance. Furthermore, transfer of strategies from model plants to crop species generates an additional layer of complexity, as not all regulatory mechanisms are conserved, particularly between dicot and monocot species. To meet these challenges, a screen for early regulators of immune signaling in both maize and Arabidopsis was performed, identifying two conserved nucleic acid-binding proteins serving as bifunctional regulators of biotic and abiotic stresses with phosphorylation-mediated functional switching. Through integrated biochemical and genetic approaches applied to both maize and Arabidopsis, these insights will be leveraged to define global mechanisms by which these newly discovered proteins modulate biotic and abiotic stresses, test strategies for targeted enhancement of resistance, and expand annotation of phosphorylation-dependent immunoregulators. Upon completion, this work will contribute to foundational understanding of layered mechanisms of immune signaling that reconfigure phenotypes, and illuminate targeted strategies for improving plant resistance. These activities will also support long-term integration of research with education and outreach, strengthening the scientific and larger community by providing opportunity and increasing awareness of plant biology. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.