Project description:We've demonstrated that plants are resistant to the overexpression of polyglutamine (polyQ) extended proteins that cause protein aggregation and Huntington's disease in human cells. To investigate which proteins, maintain polyQ proteins correctly folded and avoid polyQ aggregates in plant cells. Our goal is to identify therapeutic candidate proteins that can potentially be used to treat Huntington's disease in human cell models.
Project description:Water use efficiency has long been considered as an important target for the breeding of improved plant performance under drought. Minimizing leaf transpirational water loss via reduction of stomatal water conductance plays a key contributory role in drought resistance. In this study, we employed both guard cell (GC) targeted and constitutive ectopic overexpression of the Target of Rapamycin (TOR) kinase, a master regulator of multiple signaling networks in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana, to investigate the impact of these expressed AtTOR transgenes in response to drought and water use efficiency. We performed genome-wide transcriptome analysis employing RNA-seq on the three Arabidopsis genotypes grown on the three water treatments, and further analysis will be used to elucidate the potential mechanism(s) contributing to differences in leaf stomatal physiology between WT and transgenic lines.
