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Biotech Researchers Receive $2.1 Million
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OCTOBER 22, 2004 -- Michigan Tech researchers have been awarded a $2.1 million grant to study a critical mechanism for trees' survival that may also stunt their growth.
Since the time of Hippocrates, people have chewed on willow leaves and bark to alleviate pain. About 2,000 years later, they began manufacturing aspirin from a compound extracted from the tree. As it turns out, that family of compounds, called phenolic glycosides, also plays a key role in plant health, making many plants tough and disease-resistant.
However, plants spend a lot of energy producing phenolic glycosides, energy they could use to grow bigger. In the wild, that's not a problem. But in plantations, where trees are grown for lumber and pulp, size does matter.
With the backing of a Plant Genome Research grant from the National Science Foundation, a team of researchers led by Associate Professor Chung-Jui Tsai (School of Forestry and Environmental Science) will investigate the genetic underpinnings of phenolic glycoside production and how it relates to plant growth.
"Our goal isn't to produce new trees," said Tsai, director of the Biotechnology Research Center. "It's to identify the genes that control the balance between growth and fitness."
The team will study various species and hybrids within the Populus genus, which includes quaking aspen and black cottonwood. Like their cousin the willow, these species are unusually high in phenolic glycosides. Despite this, they are among the fastest-growing trees in nature, so the researchers suspect that they have somehow evolved a way to compensate for the high energy cost of phenolic glycoside production.
And, because the Populus genome was recently sequenced, the researchers have the DNA blueprint they need to begin fishing out the pertinent genes.
The researchers will study trees and cell cultures representing a variety of natural Populus species. Using microarray technology, the team aims to pinpoint which genes relate to phenolic glycoside production and growth.
They will also examine whether some hybrids can turn on production of the protective compounds when they are under stress and turn off production when the stress is eliminated.
Identifying this mechanism could help tree growers develop hybrids that produce more commercial wood products in less space. "Ideally, you'd want 'smart trees' that produce phenolic glycosides only when and where they are needed," said Research Assistant Professor Scott Harding (SFRES), a co-principal investigator on the project.
Because the research requires high-end mathematical analysis and database development, the team includes scientists from a number of disciplines. Other co-principal investigators on the project are Research Scientist I Hongying Jiang (SFRES), who specializes in bioinformatics; Associate Professor Shuanglin Zhang (Mathematical Sciences); and Mark Davis, of the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, Colo. In addition, the project will support one postdoc and three graduate students, one in math and two in forest biotechnology.
The four-year research project also includes education and outreach components developed by Valorie Troesch, director of development for research and the graduate school. The team plans to start a Summer Youth Exploration on biotechnology, including scholarships for participants. In addition, it expects to host a professional microarray workshop for tree biologists from around the country.
The project was made possible in part by a 2001 Michigan Life Sciences Corridor grant that funded the microarray facility at Michigan Tech and other resources used for functional genomics research. |
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