A strategy to elucidate unknown functions of plant secreted peptides.

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K21422
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 44:Biology at cellular to organismal levels, and related fields
• Research Institution: Nagoya University
• Principal Investigator: Uchida Naoyuki 名古屋大学, 遺伝子実験施設, 教授 (40467692)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-07-30 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 分泌ペプチド / 変異体

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we aimed to identify secreted peptides with novel functions in plants and determine their functions and expression patterns. We also studied the dependence of their actions on environmental changes. We selected approximately 80 peptide genes presumed to show cell type-specific expression patterns using various databases and developed a collection of their mutants. We generated high-order-multiple mutants when redundant genes seemed present in the genome. These mutants were grown under several conditions and screened for their phenotypes. We also analyzed the expression patterns of the selected factors that exhibited interesting phenotypes. As a result, we identified several secreted peptides that do not show apparent mutant phenotypes under normal conditions but exhibit interesting phenotypes only when the mutants are exposed to stresses related to their expression control.

Free Research Field

植物発生遺伝学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

多細胞生物の発生や環境応答などに関わる内在性の新重要シグナルの発見は、それ以前までの制御モデルの改訂や大きな見直しにつながることから、その分野の発展の大きな節目となることが多く、新シグナル分子の機能の発見１つ１つが新しい研究展開・研究転換の萌芽的起点となる。とりわけ、環境応答に関わるシグナル経路は、気候変動などにより変動する環境下でも生存できる植物種や農作品種の創出にも貢献できる可能性もあり、今後の活用が期待される。