Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The ability of cells to sense and respond to stress while maintaining growth and development is critical to plant health. Signal transduction is largely achieved by protein kinases that phosphorylate target proteins at specific sites, altering their activity, localization, stability, and/or binding partners, resulting in cellular reprogramming. We are two Principal Investigators in the Dept of Biology at Queen's University. Our independent but synergistic research labs focus on understanding how stress and metabolic signaling cascades are coordinated and controlled, with the ultimate goal of enhancing biotic and abiotic stress resistance in agricultural crops. We want to know how cells process information: How are stress signals perceived, transduced, and attenuated? How are signaling pathways organized and controlled? How is information integrated to optimize plant health? A shared goal of our research programs is to identify the substrates of specific plant protein kinases, and to understand how phosphorylation at distinct sites affects their function. This entails tracking the phosphoryl (P) group that a protein kinase covalently attaches to its substrate with high accuracy and reproducibility. While many tools to detect protein phosphorylation have been developed, none of them are as sensitive, unambiguous, or robust as chasing radioactive 32-P (a version of P that is trackable because it is not normally found in living things). However, detecting radioisotopes such as 32-P requires specialized equipment: a phosphorimager and a liquid scintillation counter, for which we are requesting funds. A phosphorimager is a highly sensitive laser scanner that enables imaging of radioisotopes or fluorescently stained proteins and nucleic acids following gel electrophoresis, while a liquid scintillation counter is a photon-counting instrument that quantifies levels of radioactivity in samples. Our trainees are in urgent need of these instruments to replace obsolete and nonfunctional 24-35 year-old instruments which are absolutely critical to our NSERC-funded research programs in plant biochemistry and cell signal transduction. Our research has significant long-term applications to problems in Canadian and world-wide agriculture including: (1) facilitating rational biotechnological approaches to enhancing crop resilience to pathogenic microbes, and (2) development of `phosphate-efficient' crops, urgently needed to reduce mankind's rampant but inefficient use of non-renewable, unsustainable, and polluting phosphate-containing fertilizers. We take an integrative and highly collaborative approach to research, expanding our reach far beyond the fields of plant immunology and stress biology, while enabling unique training opportunities for trainees at all career stages.