Purpose

This is a continuation of a one-year IMBA project designed to reduce a variety of environmental stresses on maize plants under field growth conditions. Abiotic stresses reduce biomass and yield.

Creating maize varieties that have enhanced tolerance to a number of adverse environmental effects would reduce crop losses and, hence, the costs of production. Work so far reveals that two plant mitochondrial proteins are highly induced by a number of different stresses. Both proteins are encoded by nuclear genes. PI's believe that a central stress defense in plant cells relies on the concerted action of both proteins.

Objectives

Researchers will introduce co-expressed genes for these two proteins into maize lines using the optimized and highly efficient technique for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of maize embryos.

Goal is to have the proteins expressed all the time, thus "pre-adapting" the plants to multiple environmental stresses. More recent observations indicate that mitochondria integrate stress signals and regulate cell death. Mitochondria must be protected if plants are to survive and recover from severe stress.

Impact

Reducing crop losses due to environmental stress is the main focus of this research. Beyond that, the process of "pre-adapting" the maize plants to multiple environmental stresses relies on altering the expression patterns of native maize genes. This is a procedure that should mitigate one of the current concerns of anti-GMO activists.