Modulating Plant Stress Pathway Output Using Natural Variation

In 2016 the 1001 Genomes Project released the whole genome sequences of 1135 Arabidopsis thaliana accessions creating an invaluable resource for the study of plant whole genome variation. Many single nucleotide polymorphisms identified in the collection reflect non-synonymous (nsSNP) variants and are represented in a high frequency of the accessions. nsSNPs located near conserved motifs or active sites of proteins might be high value targets for further studies aiming to optimize or modulate specific pathway outputs. Given that the incidence of severe weather events such as prolonged drought is increasing, regulatory networks that help plants to cope with these circumstances should be optimized. We will attempt to characterize the natural variation present in the ABA-dependent drought response pathway, by reconstituting the core four member pathway in yeast. Our specific goals are to a) quantify the relative impact of nsSNPs on the overall output of the ABA pathway b) characterize variants that affect protein-protein interactions between: PYR/PYLs with PP2Cs, PP2Cs with SnRK2s, and SnRK2s with AREB/ABFs c) identify high quality variants for further testing of their economically relevant impact on drought response in planta.