ProSPECT · Promoting Synthetic Polyploid Engineering Commencing Technology
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2022-01-01 → 2023-12-31
- EU contribution
- €191,149
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Promoting Synthetic Polyploid Engineering Commencing Technology
• What are the overall objectives? The rising need for enhanced crop yield and resilience to environmental stress calls for innovative varieties that enable a more sustainable use of land of resources One promising avenue is the exploration of polyploidy, a condition where the entire genetic material of an organism is duplicated. This phenomenon has been found to boost the adaptability, the resilience to environmental stress (such as drought) and the size of various plant organs, such as roots, leaves, fruits, or tubers, making polyploids like wheat, cotton, coffee, potato, strawberry, tobacco, blueberry, and alfalfa more prevalent among crops. Contrasting most of these established polyploid crops, that emerged from polyploidization events that took place millennia ago, newly formed polyploids (neopolyploids), although they are easy to generate, they often display severe fertility problems and genome instability that limit their use. While many established polyploid crops emerged from events that occurred thousands of years ago, newly formed polyploids, known as neopolyploids, are easier to create but often suffer from fertility issues and genome instability. One of the main challenges lie in meiosis, a specialized cell division process crucial for forming reproductive cells like sperm and egg cells (prior to formation of pollen and ovules). Established polyploids have evolved adaptations to manage the extra copies of chromosomes during meiosis, ensuring their fertility. However, neopolyploids lack these adaptations, leading to fertility problems and genome instability. This project seeks to enhance our understanding of polyploid meiosis and reproduction, aiming to develop engineered solutions that can artificially stabilize neopolyploids. The ultimate goal is to overcome fertility challenges in newly formed polyploids, paving the way for more resilient and productive crops in the future.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Polyploids, which result from Whole Genome Duplication (WGD) events, are thought to have enhanced adaptability which might explain why they are so pervasive in nature and especially in crop plants. Furthermore, polyploids exhibit multiple advantages, from an agricultural perspective, such as often having larger fruits, and being more resilient to like drought and salinity. However, polyploidy requires evolving an adapted meiosis (well documented in natural polyploids) to cope with their additional chromosome sets during meiotic segregation; otherwise, resulting aneuploidies lead to genome instability and fertility problems. Because little is known about these adaptive mechanisms, the meiotic instability displayed by artificially generated (synthetic) polyploids (which lack of an evolved meiosis) cannot be eluded and the use of these synthetic polyploids remains exceptional as a tool to generate novel crop varieties. It is expected that regulating meiotic crossovers to prevent formation of multivalent associations among more than two homologous chromosomes during meiosis would decisively improve segregation and fertility of synthetic polyploids. While compelling, this hypothesis has not been formally tested. ProSPECT aims to address the problem of genome instability in synthetic polyploids by testing the viability of two strategies to artificially induce meiotic adjustments that might improve chromosome segregation using Arabidopsis thaliana polyploid mutants as a proof of concept. To do so I will use two strategies: (a) First, I will use meiotic recombination mutants known to reduce the number of meiotic crossovers to test if this is sufficient to limit the chances for multivalent formation in A. thaliana synthetic polyploid inbreds. (b) Second, I will use polyploid hybrids carrying combinations of meiotic mutants known to restrict meiotic crossovers to (nearly) identical partners to test if this is sufficient to impede associations among more than two chromosomes.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- EIDGENOESSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZUERICH · ZuerichCoordinatorSwitzerland
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union