Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The production of food and bioenergy crops is significantly affected by various abiotic stresses, such as drought, heat, and salt stress. Adverse effects of such abiotic stresses are exacerbated by global climate change. Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is a major cereal and bioenergy crop. Sorghum is an excellent model for studying molecular mechanisms of adaptation to abiotic stresses, as it is resilient to drought and heat stress. In the field condition, crop plants often encounter more than one stress at the same time, leading to more severe harmful effects as compared to the cumulative negative effects exerted by individual stresses. The research component of this integrated project will focus on elucidating molecular regulation of responses to combined drought and heat stress in sorghum. Specifically, we will focus on unraveling the roles of different RNA modifications and their interconnections in mediating responses to combined drought and heat stress. This project will allow the identification of novel targets that can be utilized by modern gene editing approaches to develop crop plants resilient to combined drought and heat stress. In the education component of this integrated project, the focus will be on strengthening an agricultural biotechnology (ag-biotech) program at a predominantly minority-serving institute and empowering minority students by providing direct experiential learning and allowing them to develop soft skills necessary for future career success. The outreach component of the project will focus on attracting high- and middle-school students to the fascinating field of ag-biotech.
Animal Health Component
10%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
90%
Applied
10%
Developmental
0%
Goals / Objectives
The overall goal of this integrated project is to build agricultural biotechnology (ag-biotech) research and education capacity at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), a predominantly Hispanic serving institution located in the lower Rio Grande Valley (RGV) region in South Texas. Objectives of this integrated project will be as follows: (A) the research objective of the project will be to discover the roles of different mRNA modifications and their interdependence in mediating responses to combined drought and heat stress in the key cereal and bioenergy crop, sorghum. (B) The education objective will be designing a curriculum, initiating a new undergraduate 'Biotechnology' course, providing direct research experience to graduate (MS level) and undergraduate minority students at the host and collaborating institutions, and facilitating the development of soft skills of students. (C) The outreach objective of the project will be to expose local minority high-school students to ag-biotech through summer research internships and to motivate and attract minority middle-school students in the RGV region towards ag-biotech. Altogether, the proposed project will contribute towards developing a diverse, inclusive ag-biotech workforce in the US.
Project Methods
The research goal of the project will be to elucidate the roles of different RNA modifications in exerting responses to combined drought and heat stress in sorghum. Sorghum seedlings will be grown in 0.5X Hoagland solution in a controlled growth chamber (26°C and 50% relative humidity), and eight-days old sorghum seedlings will be subjected to 6 hours of concurrent drought (imposed by PEG-8000) and heat stress (by growing seedlings at 45°C). All experiments will include no-stress controls and three biological replicates. Stress experiments will be conducted both in the 'wild type' and a knockout sorghum line involving a key gene implicated in RNA processing. In all cases, immediately after the stress experiment, tissues will be collected and flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen. Total RNA will be isolated and will be subjected to small RNA sequencing using the Illumina platform and long read sequencing using 3rd generation sequencing. Comprehensive bioinformatic analyses will be conducted to elucidate the pervasiveness of different RNA modifications and to discover crosstalk among different RNA modifications in mediating responses of sorghum seedlings to combined drought and heat stress. The Co-PI will be involved in developing bioinformatic pipelines to analyze various RNA modifications and their crosstalk. This project will recruit two graduate students (MS level) and four undergraduate students. One graduate student will be recruited in the first and the other in the third year of the project, and each year one undergraduate student will be recruited from the minority communities. Attempts will be made to recruit at least 50% female minority students. The project will strengthen the ag-biotech program at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) through curriculum development, course modernization, and direct professional mentoring of the students. The project will provide direct research experience to minority students in the realm of ag-biotech, including designing stress experiments, performing various molecular biology techniques, and carrying out cutting-edge next-generation sequencing. The students will receive training in ag-biotech in PI's lab and collaborating laboratories in academia and industry. The project will also provide summer research internships in the ag-biotech STEM area to eight local high-school students. Each year two high-school students will be provided research internships. The PI's group will also organize two outreach events per semester to invigorate the interests of middle-school students in the local school districts predominantly from minority backgrounds in the ag-biotech STEM area. This activity will encourage and motivate students from minority backgrounds to pursue a career in the ag-biotech STEM area. Collectively, this project will strengthen ag-biotech research and education at a primarily minority-serving institute through collaborative initiatives, support UTRGV's quest to become an R1 university and strengthen the US ag-biotech workforce by making it diverse and inclusive.