Genomics-Enabled Plant Biology for Determination of Gene Function
Funding Agency:
- Department of Energy
Crop plants developed to be productive on lands unsuitable for traditional agricultural crops have the potential to play a significant role in the emerging bioeconomy as an alternative source of renewable feedstocks for fuels and chemicals. Plant scientists and breeders recognize that potentially bigger gains in productivity and sustainability may be realized in such crops by leveraging multi-omics approaches, systems biology, and computational biology to better understand the regulation of critical plant processes at the molecular level. However, understanding molecular function remains a challenge in plants due to several unique features, such as segmental and whole genome duplications, differences in mode of reproduction, and domestication.
Specifically, this FOA seeks applications that employ systems biology and high throughput approaches to elucidate and validate the functional roles of genes, gene families, and associated pathways related to physiological and metabolic processes such as CO2 sequestration and belowground storage; nutrient and water use efficiency; tolerance and/or resistance to abiotic stresses such as drought and temperature extremes; developmental processes critical to enhanced biomass yield and optimization or extension of growth range; and metabolism of oils and fatty acids for biofuels and bioproducts. Projects of interest should include one or more of the following: a) Comprehensive investigations of regulatory elements and mechanisms (e.g., transcription factors, cis-regulatory regions, enhancers, insulators, epigenetic regulation, alternative splicing mechanisms, etc.) to validate regulation of gene expression; b) Approaches to functionally understand gene families to elucidate regulatory differences among members, sub-functionalization, and functional divergence, particularly in large gene families; and/or c) Dissection of multigene traits (e.g., yield) into its genetic components and characterization and validation of molecular genetic functions for these components, with an aim towards understanding their impacts on the final phenotype.
Multiple awards; Award Ceiling: $1,000,000
$30,000,000
January 28, 2022 at 5:00 PM Eastern Time
March 25, 2022 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time
Cathy Ronning cathy.ronning@science.doe.gov