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Columns::October 27, 2003
Shared-leave program for UGA employees begins in February
Private company will assume management of bookstore
There’s (almost) no place like home
Undergraduate researchers gain experience with apprenticeships
Campus News
NSF grant provides $3.9 million for four years of plant genome research
By Phil Williams
phil@franklin.uga.edu
The National Science Foundation’s Plant Genome Research Program has awarded a grant of $3.9 million to a team of
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Michael Scanlon
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researchers directed by UGA plant biologist Michael Scanlon.
The funded project is called “Functional Analyses of Genes Involved in Meristem Organization and Leaf Initiation.” It will be supported over a four-year period.
“This NSF award to Dr. Scanlon’s team continues the very strong work UGA has been doing in plant genomics in recent years,” says President Michael F. Adams. “I am particularly pleased that as a part of this grant, Dr. Scanlon and his team will be speaking with students in minority-majority high schools and helping train teachers from those schools, introducing them both to this important science and to the University of Georgia.”
Since the Plant Genome Research Program began in 1998, NSF has committed about $375 million to the effort (including this year’s new awards.) Currently the program supports 120 projects. Other universities involved in the new grant are Iowa State University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Truman State University.
“Traditional studies of plant development have largely proceeded one gene at a time,” says Scanlon. “We expect that with today’s technology we can analyze functional networks of gene expression that occur in a small number of developmentally important cells.”
According to Mary Clutter, assistant director of NSF’s Directorate for Biological Sciences, this year’s awards take advantage of the fruits of earlier genome projects to extend existing areas of research and to break entirely new ground.
“In key ways, these projects will expand what we know about the biology of the plant kingdom, including plants that have a major impact upon the lives of people around the world,” Clutter says. “In a relatively short time, genomics has created massive amounts of data and innovative, adaptable tools for biological research. These now make it possible for scientists, wherever they are, to approach important, challenging questions in new ways.”
All above-ground organs of higher plants are ultimately derived from specialized structures called shoot apical meristems, or SAMs. The SAM exhibits distinctive structural organization, marked by zones of tissue growth and cell layering.
The structure of plant SAMs is correlated with their function. New leaves grow from the peripheral zone of the SAM, and the central zone replenishes new meristematic cells that are lost during growth. Establishment and maintenance of these structurally and functionally distinct zones of the SAM is achieved by differential expression patterns and interactions of thousands of plant genes.
New technologies give scientists the ability to identify and analyze genes required for meristem function in maize. Laser dissection microscopy is a powerful technique that permits the isolation of RNA from specific cell types within fixed plant tissues immobilized on slides. RNA collected from 1,000-10,000 cells is sufficient for use in analyses of gene expression, which permit the simultaneous examination of expression profiles of 15,000 to 30,000 genes.
Among a number of goals, the newly funded research project will seek to improve laser dissection microscopy for use on maize shoot apical meristems and then make the information available on a project Web site. Profiles of global gene expression in the SAM will be deposited also in public Web sites. Outreach and training will also be part of the grant, and undergraduates from Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., will engage in cutting-edge genomics research. Scanlon will deliver guest lectures at local high schools with predominantly minority enrollment, and UGA and the CSHL Dolan DNA Learning Center of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York State will train teachers from underrepresented minority high schools and university settings in plant genomics and bioinformatics.
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