Canadian PI: Dr. Leon Kochian                  

Canadian Institution: University of Saskatchewan

Indian PI: Dr. Ashverya Laxmi

Indian Institution: National Institute of Plant Genome Research

Project Summary:

Climate change is a major challenge to agriculture as it produces higher temperatures along with more frequent drought occurrences. This challenge is receiving major concern, and creating the urgency globally, to address and develop new gene-based technologies for strategic mitigation opportunities in agriculture. Relevant to this, the emerging scientific evidence suggests that signaling programs play important functions in diverse stress responses. Among these, “Target Of Rapamycin (TOR)” mediated signaling has been identified, as one of the key players in stress response and recovery programs in plants. This project will investigate, the molecular mechanism of eukaryotic energy sensor TOR kinase mediated regulation of thermotolerance and drought resistance, to gain new insights using model plant Arabidopsis and crop plant species important for Canadian and Indian agriculture.

This research challenge will exploit our initial findings, produced with studies performed in the Arabidopsis model plant species.  These studies revealed that by modulating the expression of the Arabidopsis TOR kinase, the derivative transgenic plants displayed improved adaptive performance to water challenged conditions along with enhanced drought tolerance as well as better thermotolerance. In this project, building on these findings, we will apply advanced phenotyping, genomics, proteomics, functional genomics and gene editing technologies, to obtain mechanistic insights into the underpinning molecular and biochemical processes regulated by TOR signaling. Towards this objective, we will develop regulated expression of TOR Kinase and its downstream signaling partners in Arabidopsis and selected crop species, with an aim to identify and functionally characterize the genetic, molecular and biochemical components associated with thermotolerance and drought stress tolerance. The research findings coming from this project, will help towards advancing critical knowledge and foundational insights into the functions of TOR signaling in stress response. Furthermore, this research will have potential to improve the climate adaptive drought and thermos tolerance traits in canola, rice, cauliflower and tomato crops.