YIELDFACTOR · Using SP1 to control plastid development and yield in cereals
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-03-07 → 2018-03-06
- EU contribution
- €195,455
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Using SP1 to control plastid development and yield in cereals
The addressed question: A novel E3 ligase (SP1) in Arabidopsis controls plastid biogenesis, development and functions. This protein is essential for de-etiolation and early seedling establishment; it participates in leaf senescence; and it is involved in plant resistance to stress. All of these effects are highly correlated with plant growth and yield. Thus, the discovery of SP1 strongly suggests potential applications in agriculture, such as delaying leaf senescence to produce a “stay-green” phenotype, or controlling amyloplast development during grain filling by using SP1 to increase crop yield and quality, etc. This project investigated the functions of SP1 in rice and tomato to assess the application potential of SP1 in regulating the stress resistance ability of crop plants and improving yields. We made transgenic rice and tomato plants with manipulated SP1 expression, and assessed the growth, development and performance of the plants extensively, under both normal and stress conditions including drought and salt treatments. The importance to society: This project provided important knowledge of relevance in a number of areas, including plant genetics, plant breeding, plant biochemistry and plant development. As we know, plant plastids are responsible for producing important products such as starch, proteins and oils, which are highly correlated to yield. Therefore, the mechanisms of plastid development are critical to crop improvements. The discovery of SP1 strongly suggests potential applications in agriculture, such as delaying leaf senescence to produce a “stay-green” phenotype. Previous research had not investigated the functions and application potential of SP1 in crops, making this a cutting-edge project. This project also provided new insights into fundamental questions about the functions of SP1 in crops. The outputs of the project are relevant to food security, and will be of immediate interest to agricultural plant breeding strategies by suggesting novel strategies for increasing yields or grain quality, and/or by enabling crop plants to better deal with adverse environmental conditions (such as drought, high salinity, high temperature, etc.) which may occur more frequently in the future as a result of climate change. Improving crop stress tolerance may also enable crops to grow in places which are not currently suitable for crop growth.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Recently, the host lab found that a novel ubiquitin E3 ligase, SP1, regulates the translocon of the outer chloroplast membrane (TOC), which is responsible for importing nucleus-encoded proteins into plastids. SP1 achieves this by promoting the degradation TOC components by the cytosolic 26S proteasome. This is the first time the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) has been shown to directly regulate plastid development and function. By increasing or decreasing SP1 levels in transgenic Arabidopsis plants, multiple effects of SP1 were observed; e.g., inefficient de-etiolation leading to low survival rates and delayed leaf senescence in sp1 null mutants (Science 2012, 338:655-9). Also, sp1 mutants are significantly more sensitive to stress (unpublished). These data suggest that SP1 is important for the differentiation and interconversion of different plastid types, and all of the effects are highly correlated with plant growth and yield. Thus, discovery of SP1 strongly suggests potential applications in agriculture, such as delaying leaf senescence to produce a staygreen phenotype, or controlling amyloplast development during grain development, by modifying SP1 expression. This project will investigate the function of SP1 in cereals, and assess the potential of SP1 for manipulating plastids to improve cereal yield. I will generate transgenic plants with manipulated SP1 expression in Brachypodium distachyon (a versatile cereal model) and Oryza sativa (rice). I will study the development of plastids in the transformants, and assess the transformants for beneficial effects on yield parameters, such as starch content, seed weight, germination, de-etiolation, leaf senescence and stress resistance. At the end, I will have thoroughly assessed the potential use of SP1 for manipulating cereal traits linked to yield. A major strength of the proposal is the complementarity of my expertise with that of the host. Our unique combination of skills will ensure success of the project.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD · OxfordCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union