Overview

Project: Advanced seed phenotyping and precise seeding for genetics and plant breeding

MSCA application: Harnessing the DNA Damage Response to improve plant tolerance to heat stress

Type: MSCA / HORIZON – fully covered costs: living, mobility, family allowance

Duration: 36 months

Institutional partner for PhD study: Masaryk University Brno – Genomics and proteomics

Plants produce a wide variety of seed types as a survival strategy to cope with diverse environmental conditions. This adaptability is essential for responding to changes in their environment. We showed that both precise seed-to-seed positioning and seed phenotyping have a direct impact on the early postembryonal plant growth. In this project we will test the comparison between Arabidopsis wild-type and DNA Damage Response mutants, in control and heat stress conditions as a model system for testing of existing algorithms. In the case new phenotypical traits will appear we will implement new computional algorithms and potentially AI based analysis for the consecutive seed sorting. Transcriptomics and ATAC-seq experiments will be implemented to probe the molecular mechanisms underlying seed phenotypic variability. In parallel, these analyses will be extended to other species and seeding protocols/computational algorithms for crop species with larger seeds, first on tomato that produces relatively small seeds, than on barley. We count as well with priming methods with the emphasis on the statistical variations and Gaussian distribution of individual phenotypical traits and combined seed traits. Based on large seed datasets, we will perform seed-to-plant phenotypical experiments with an emphasis on gene expression in young seedlings. We assume that by targeted seed selection it will be possible to reduce biological variability in at least 10% from extreme percentiles of the existing distribution. Finally, we will expand results of precise seed-to-seed positioning using DNA Damage Response lines and different priming strategies. It is possible to assume different plant growth responses of DNA Damage Response mutant lines in neighbourhood growth experiments. Understanding of these processes is of key importance for developmental biology and breeding.

Such scientific results will emphasize the significance of our understanding of individual seed phenotypes. Ultimately, the effective selection of seeds and the correlation of observed seed traits with growth characteristics may be crucial for plant adaptation and breeding in the face of ongoing climate change.