NSF : EiR: Building capacity at an HCBU: Tropical plants, their endosymbionts, and their metabolomes.

Bowie State University, Bowie MD

Investigators

Abstract

Diverse plant species are used traditionally by diverse human cultures worldwide for their medicinal properties. These plants are culturally important and impactful because chemical compounds (metabolites) from them can have therapeutic effects. It is now understood that all plants host diverse microbes within their tissues, including those used medicinally. This project focuses on two species of traditional importance in Africa to ask how fungi and bacteria occurring within plants can influence plant metabolites of medicinal use, either by increasing or changing the expression of plant metabolites, or by expressing their own chemical compounds. This project will advance an understanding of the ways in which plant-affiliated microbes influence the metabolites of plants while supporting training for undergraduates at Bowie State University (BSU), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), in international and inter-institutional research experiences that range from field collections in Kenya to training at US partner universities in molecular ecology and the science of metabolomes (metabolomics). The observation that microbes occur within living plant tissues as endophytes raises the question: to what degree are endophytes responsible for the secondary metabolites attributed to medicinal plants by cultural practitioners and scientists alike? This project will (1) characterize endophyte communities in above-ground tissues of the medicinal plants Azadiracta indica (neem) and Melia azedarach (melea) in Kenya and the US, (2) use inoculation experiments to establish metabolite profiles for each species in the presence and absence of selected endophytes, and (3) characterize and quantify the production of metabolites by selected endophytes on diverse substrates. This project will provide insight into an understudied but ubiquitous symbiosis – that of endophytes and the host plants whose tissues humans use directly – to link plant metabolic phenotypes to those of their microbial symbionts. It will do so by engaging students from BSU in (a) authentic academic-year and classroom-based research and (b) mentored research in Kenya and at the University of Arizona (a Hispanic-Serving Institution, HSI), (c) in collaboration with a metabolomics laboratory at Morgan State University (an HBCU). By providing capacity-building and training, this project will expand opportunities in microbiology, metabolomics, plant science, and international engagement for undergraduates, support a cross-cutting international and inter-institutional research experience for BSU students, foster authentic research and support a postdoc in the plant science curriculum at BSU, and strengthen ties among US HBCUs, an HSI, and international partners in Kenya. 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.