Dataset Information

Improving plant drought tolerance and growth under water limitation through combinatorial engineering of signalling networks.

ABSTRACT: Agriculture is by far the biggest water consumer on our planet, accounting for 70 per cent of all freshwater withdrawals. Climate change and a growing world population increase pressure on agriculture to use water more efficiently ('more crop per drop'). Water-use efficiency (WUE) and drought tolerance of crops are complex traits that are determined by many physiological processes whose interplay is not well understood. Here, we describe a combinatorial engineering approach to optimize signalling networks involved in the control of stress tolerance. Screening a large population of combinatorially transformed plant lines, we identified a combination of calcium-dependent protein kinase genes that confers enhanced drought stress tolerance and improved growth under water-limiting conditions. Targeted introduction of this gene combination into plants increased plant survival under drought and enhanced growth under water-limited conditions. Our work provides an efficient strategy for engineering complex signalling networks to improve plant performance under adverse environmental conditions, which does not depend on prior understanding of network function.

SUBMITTER: Schulz P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7769235 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Improving plant drought tolerance and growth under water limitation through combinatorial engineering of signalling networks.

Schulz Philipp P Piepenburg Katrin K Lintermann Ruth R Herde Marco M Schöttler Mark A MA Schmidt Lena K LK Ruf Stephanie S Kudla Jörg J Romeis Tina T Bock Ralph R

Plant biotechnology journal 20200726 1

Agriculture is by far the biggest water consumer on our planet, accounting for 70 per cent of all freshwater withdrawals. Climate change and a growing world population increase pressure on agriculture to use water more efficiently ('more crop per drop'). Water-use efficiency (WUE) and drought tolerance of crops are complex traits that are determined by many physiological processes whose interplay is not well understood. Here, we describe a combinatorial engineering approach to optimize signallin ...[more]

PMID: 32623825

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Project description:UNLABELLED:Engineering microbial hosts for the production of fungible fuels requires mitigation of limitations posed on the production capacity. One such limitation arises from the inherent toxicity of solvent-like biofuel compounds to production strains, such as Escherichia coli. Here we show the importance of host engineering for the production of short-chain alcohols by studying the overexpression of genes upregulated in response to exogenous isopentenol. Using systems biology data, we selected 40 genes that were upregulated following isopentenol exposure and subsequently overexpressed them in E. coli. Overexpression of several of these candidates improved tolerance to exogenously added isopentenol. Genes conferring isopentenol tolerance phenotypes belonged to diverse functional groups, such as oxidative stress response (soxS, fpr, and nrdH), general stress response (metR, yqhD, and gidB), heat shock-related response (ibpA), and transport (mdlB). To determine if these genes could also improve isopentenol production, we coexpressed the tolerance-enhancing genes individually with an isopentenol production pathway. Our data show that expression of 6 of the 8 candidates improved the production of isopentenol in E. coli, with the methionine biosynthesis regulator MetR improving the titer for isopentenol production by 55%. Additionally, expression of MdlB, an ABC transporter, facilitated a 12% improvement in isopentenol production. To our knowledge, MdlB is the first example of a transporter that can be used to improve production of a short-chain alcohol and provides a valuable new avenue for host engineering in biogasoline production. IMPORTANCE:The use of microbial host platforms for the production of bulk commodities, such as chemicals and fuels, is now a focus of many biotechnology efforts. Many of these compounds are inherently toxic to the host microbe, which in turn places a limit on production despite efforts to optimize the bioconversion pathways. In order to achieve economically viable production levels, it is also necessary to engineer production strains with improved tolerance to these compounds. We demonstrate that microbial tolerance engineering using transcriptomics data can also identify targets that improve production. Our results include an exporter and a methionine biosynthesis regulator that improve isopentenol production, providing a starting point to further engineer the host for biogasoline production.

Dataset Information

Improving plant drought tolerance and growth under water limitation through combinatorial engineering of signalling networks.

Publications

Improving plant drought tolerance and growth under water limitation through combinatorial engineering of signalling networks.

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