Study on mechanisms against abiotic and biotic stress responses in plants and its application

• Overview

  Plants always grow and survive under biotic stresses, such as pathogens and pests, and abiotic (environmental) stresses, such as drought, salt, high temperature and low temperature. It is assumed that these stresses cause 70% to 50% reduction of crop production worldwide. Many wild plants and wild ancestors of domesticated plants have mechanism(s) for resistance against these biotic and abiotic stresses. Therefore, biotic stress and abiotic stress tolerance mechanisms in plants should be elucidated for breeding of stress-tolerant crops.

  In recent years, comprehensive RNA-seq analysis of various plant species has revealed that various viruses have been asymptomatically infected in many wild plant species and ancestors of crops. Our research object is elucidating the relationship between activation mechanisms of RNA interference (RNAi) in host plants by asymptomatic virus infection and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. At the same time, to confer crops on resistance to biotic stresses (pathogens and pests) by inducing RNAi by directly applying double-stranded RNA to plants is our object (goal).

  

Members

Taishi Umezawa (Institute of Agriculture / Professor)
Takeshi Suzuki (Institute of Global Innovation Research / Professor)
Shunsuke Adachi (Institute of Agriculture / Associate Professor)