Ithaca, New York
January 16, 2008
By Krishna Ramanujan
Cornell and Yale
universities will share a $5.5 million, four-year grant from the
National Science Foundation for research to better understand
the biology of rice, maize and sorghum,
among other crops.
The Cornell researchers include Associate Professor Klaas van
Wijk and Professor Robert Turgeon, both in the Department of
Plant Biology, and Thomas Brutnell, adjunct professor and
Boyce Thompson Institute
for Plant Research associate scientist. They will
collaborate with Cornell computational biologist Qi Sun.
Specifically, the researchers will compare two categories of
crops -- or grasses -- known as C3 and C4. Common C3 grasses
include wheat, rye and rice. C4 grasses, which evolved from C3s,
include such major cereal crops as maize and sorghum as well as
the most promising biofuels crops, such as switchgrass. C4
grasses are more efficient than C3 grasses in their
photosynthesis when under stress or exposed to higher
temperatures and are able to create more biomass.
"Many plants are C3," said van Wijk. "We are asking what is
needed for a plant to go from a C3 organization to a C4
organization. Maybe many of the components of the C4
organization are already in place in C3, and we just don't know
how to turn those on." The study will provide a basic
understanding of differences in cell-specific gene regulation
and protein accumulation.
By understanding how these two plant types differ, the
researchers will contribute to an effort led by the
International Rice Research
Institute to introduce C4 characteristics into a C3 species,
such as rice, thereby possibly increasing both biomass and grain
yields.
The project will use laser technologies to capture specific cell
types in maize and rice leaves for further analysis of proteins
and gene transcripts. A quantitative inventory of these
molecules in each cell type will provide information regarding
the regulation of gene expression and will explain how maize and
rice plants differ in photosynthesis and in other cellular
functions.
Researchers at Yale will be using laser technology to collect
the cell types, and along with BTI researchers, they will also
conduct transcript analysis. Cornell researchers will use mass
spectrometry to analyze the proteins within these captured
cells, will study leaf physiology of the grasses and will make a
public database of the findings. |
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