Increasing seed yields by the targeted modulation of brassinosteroids (based at Rothamsted Research)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bath
Department Name: Biology and Biochemistry
Abstract
Seeds constitute the main propagule for plant growth and at the same time are the most important
agricultural product, accounting for at least 70% of the world's food supply. With rising population
and diminishing agricultural land, it is increasingly urgent to improve crop yields. Increasing seed size
and number in seed crop species are important routes to achieving this goal, and improving food
security. In situations where seeds are the most important part of the crop, e.g. oil-seed rape, wheat,
maize, and rice, the best way to increase yield is to produce plants that have a higher number of seeds
with no concomitant decrease in seed size or quality. In plants, such as oilseeds, where seeds are
produced in pods, seed number per pod is often positively correlated with seed yield. In addition,
there is also a positive correlation between oil content in seeds and seed number per pod.
Brassinosteroids control a large number of agronomically important traits including seed yield,
flowering time, and stress tolerance. Over-expression of brassinosteriod biosynthetic or signalling
genes in Arabidopsis and rice have resulted in concomitant increases in seed yield. However, in many
cases constitutive over-expression of these genes led to undesirable negative effects on plant growth
and yield. This implies that changes in brassinosteroid synthesis or signalling can cause a combination
of positive and negative effects on traits that are of interest. Therefore, the use of tissue specific
promoters represents a strategy for increasing crop yield by modulating the level of brassinosteroids
and harnessing their role in plant development.
The project will focus on introducing selected brassinosteroid-related genes into Arabidopsis under
the control of distinct tissue-specific promoters and investigating the subsequent effects on seed yield
traits. Specifically, we will identify genes that increase the number of ovules in a plant leading to an
increased number of seed per pod. We will then test the ability of these introduced genes to increase
seed yield overall.
The project will use a combination of molecular, developmental, and cell biological techniques and
provide training in the disciplines of plant genetics, genomics as well as bioinformatic, statistical, and
microscopy techniques.
agricultural product, accounting for at least 70% of the world's food supply. With rising population
and diminishing agricultural land, it is increasingly urgent to improve crop yields. Increasing seed size
and number in seed crop species are important routes to achieving this goal, and improving food
security. In situations where seeds are the most important part of the crop, e.g. oil-seed rape, wheat,
maize, and rice, the best way to increase yield is to produce plants that have a higher number of seeds
with no concomitant decrease in seed size or quality. In plants, such as oilseeds, where seeds are
produced in pods, seed number per pod is often positively correlated with seed yield. In addition,
there is also a positive correlation between oil content in seeds and seed number per pod.
Brassinosteroids control a large number of agronomically important traits including seed yield,
flowering time, and stress tolerance. Over-expression of brassinosteriod biosynthetic or signalling
genes in Arabidopsis and rice have resulted in concomitant increases in seed yield. However, in many
cases constitutive over-expression of these genes led to undesirable negative effects on plant growth
and yield. This implies that changes in brassinosteroid synthesis or signalling can cause a combination
of positive and negative effects on traits that are of interest. Therefore, the use of tissue specific
promoters represents a strategy for increasing crop yield by modulating the level of brassinosteroids
and harnessing their role in plant development.
The project will focus on introducing selected brassinosteroid-related genes into Arabidopsis under
the control of distinct tissue-specific promoters and investigating the subsequent effects on seed yield
traits. Specifically, we will identify genes that increase the number of ovules in a plant leading to an
increased number of seed per pod. We will then test the ability of these introduced genes to increase
seed yield overall.
The project will use a combination of molecular, developmental, and cell biological techniques and
provide training in the disciplines of plant genetics, genomics as well as bioinformatic, statistical, and
microscopy techniques.
People |
ORCID iD |
Roderick Scott (Primary Supervisor) | |
Mollie LANGDON (Student) |
Title | 'What is GM and how can it help us?' short video |
Description | I created a short 8-minute video outlining what genetic modification (GM) is and how can it be used to meet rising food demands. The video was broadcast during the virtual New Scientist Live 'Future of Food and Agriculture' 2019 event on Rothamsted Research's virtual channel. The video was later published to Rothamsted Research's YouTube channel. |
Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Impact | Received positive feedback and engagement about GM crops from multiple viewers who watched the video. |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5Qm5q5sY1A |
Title | 'What is my PhD about?' short video |
Description | I created a short 5-minute video detailing the objectives and background of my PhD for Rothamsted Research's virtual PhD Symposium 2021. The 'What is my PhD about' video was later published to my YouTube channel. |
Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Impact | Received positive feedback and engagement about my PhD project from multiple viewers who watched the video. |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlKNJM5v1io |
Description | Transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana lines have been created and are currently being analysed to assess the effect of increasing seed number on seed yield. Transgenic Brassica oleracea lines and transgenic Oryza sativa lines have also been created and are currently being analysed to assess the effect of increasing seed size on seed yield. |
Exploitation Route | Once all results have been analysed and this work has been published, further investigation into the mechanisms governing the regulation of seed number and seed size could be performed by future PhD students or post-doctoral researchers, to further understand how these mechanisms could be manipulated to increase seed yields. |
Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink |
Description | The findings from this project will help to inform crop breeding programmes to improve seed yields. |
First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink |
Impact Types | Societal,Economic |
Description | Application for a new Confocal Microscope |
Amount | £721,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 07/2021 |
End | 03/2022 |
Description | Application for a new Zeiss Axio Imager.Z2 High Resolution Light Microscope |
Amount | £97,200 (GBP) |
Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2019 |
End | 03/2020 |
Title | Macro for automatic tracing of seed/ovule size |
Description | A Image J macro was created will allows for automatic analyses of image data to extract seed/ovule size data. |
Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | Shared with collaborators. |
Title | RNA-seq transcriptome dataset |
Description | We have generated an Arabidopsis thaliana dataset using gynoecia tissue collected from transgenic plants ectopically expressing brassinosteroid-related genes and floral development genes under a gynoecium-specific promoter. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | The dataset can be used to identify differentially expressed genes within the transgenic gynoecium transcriptome and potentially indicate pathways or molecular mechanism that have been perturbed in the transgenic lines. The dataset will be made available once published. |
Title | Transcriptome dataset |
Description | We have generated a Brassica tissue specific transcriptome data set across 5 genotypes, 18 distinct tissues and several developmental stage. |
Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | Will allow the identification of key regulators for yield traits. Will be available once published. |
Description | targeted knockdowns in crops |
Organisation | National Institute of Agronomy and Botany (NIAB) |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | The NIAB crop transformation facility had an open call for transformations in crops (BBSRC funding to provide this capability to the research community free of charge). We utilised information regarding to seed size generated in our group to apply to the call to generate a knock-down in a locus of interest in rice in an attempt to see if the gene function translates from dicots species to monocot species. |
Collaborator Contribution | The partner NIAB has provided transformation and initial screening of rice knockdown lines. |
Impact | We have received RNAi rice lines which will be screened and assessed. |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | British Science Week 2021 poster trail involvement |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Participated in Rothamsted Research's British Science Week poster trail by creating a 'Meet the scientists' poster with a QR code link to a short video I made about GM crops. Posters will be displayed for 5th-14th March on a poster trail around Harpenden for school children to view. Scanning the QR code on the poster will take the audience to the GM crop video on YouTube. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://twitter.com/LangdonMollie/status/1369315061626511374 |
Description | Cafe Scientifique public outreach scientific talks 2019-2020 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Cafe Scientifique is a monthly event run by PhD students which hosts scientific talks for the general public held in a pub. I was involved in organising and hosting the events (liaising with venue holder, advertising events, chairing talks and Q&A sessions). 10-30 members of the public were regularly attending the monthly talks and were engaging in interesting discussion during the Q&A sessions. Current events are postponed due to COVID-19 restrictions. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019,2020 |
URL | https://twitter.com/csharpenden?lang=en |
Description | Engagement with industry/stakeholder |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | 2nd Annual BRAVO sLoLa stakeholder meetings where members of the breeding/growing industry discuss progress on the BRAVO project. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Engagement with industry/stakeholder |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | The second annual 'Brassica Rapeseed And Vegetable Optimisation' stakeholder meeting was organised on the 19the of February 2019 at Rothamsted Research. Besides project partners and members of the supervisory board, over 20 stakeholder/companies were invited to the meeting. Along with project presentation, vegetable and oilseed breeders presented challenges faced by them and this was followed by several feedback and discussion sessions. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Lecture to undergraduate students |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | A lecture on this project and related research and its impact in general terms was presented to 2nd year undergraduate students specialising in Plant Sciences module from Oxford Brookes University. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | New Scientist Live virtual 'Future of Food and Agriculture' 2020 event participation |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Participated by creating a short video on GM crops that was broadcasted on Rothamsted Research's virtual channel during the New Scientist Live virtual 'Future of Food and Agriculture' event. The video was watched by a wide range of audience members (general public, scientific, industry etc.) and the video was later uploaded to Rothamsted Research's YouTube channel and received further views. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5Qm5q5sY1A |
Description | Participated in virtual 2021 'Work Experience Meet a Scientist' session |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Participated in Rothamsted Research's 2021 virtual 'Work Experience Meet a Scientist' session (held online) - where I spoke to ten 15-16 year old school children who were on their 'virtual' work experience about what it is like to work in science and do a PhD. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Poster presentation at 2019 'European Plant Sciences Retreat' conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Presented a poster on my PhD project at the 2019 'European Plant Sciences Retreat' conference hosted in Nottingham (UK). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Poster presentation at 2019 'University of Bath Biology and Biochemistry Research Day' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Presented a poster outlining my PhD project at 2019 'University of Bath Biology and Biochemistry Research Day' hosted at the University of Bath (Bath, UK). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Poster presentation at 2019 Rothamsted Research 'Annual Postgraduate Symposium' conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Presented a poster outlining my PhD project at 2019 Rothamsted Research 'Annual Postgraduate Symposium' conference hosted at Rothamsted Research (Harpenden, UK). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Poster presentation at 2021 'Plant Science for Climate Emergency' virtual conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Presented a poster outlining my PhD project at the 2021 'Plant Science for Climate Emergency' virtual conference (held online). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Poster presentation at 2021 'SWBio DTP Virtual Annual Student Conference' conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Presented a poster outlining my PhD project at the 2021 'SWBio DTP Virtual Annual Student Conference' (held online). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Poster presentation at 2021 'University of Bath Biology and Biochemistry Virtual Research Day' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Presented a poster outlining my PhD project at the 2021 'University of Bath Biology and Biochemistry Virtual Research Day' (held online). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Presentation at 2019 'SWBio DTP Annual Student Conference' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Presented a flash talk on my PhD project at the 2019 'SWBio DTP Annual Student Conference' hosted in Exeter (UK). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Presentation at 2021 'SWBio DTP Annual Student Virtual Conference' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Presented a talk outlining my PhD project at the 2021 'SWBio DTP Annual Virtual Student Conference' (held online). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Presentation at 2021 Rothamsted Research 'Annual Postgraduate Symposium' virtual conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Presented a multi-media video outlining my PhD project at 2021 Rothamsted Research 'Annual Postgraduate Symposium' virtual conference (held online), and I subsequently uploaded the video to YouTube for further dissemination. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Presentation at 2021 UK-Brassica Research Community |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Presented my PhD project at the Annual UK-Brassica Research Community (UK-BRC) conference at Rothamsted Research, Harpenden (UK). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Presentation at 2022 Rothamsted Research 'Annual Postgraduate Symposium' conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Presented a talk outlining my PhD project at the 2022 Rothamsted Research 'Annual Postgraduate Symposium' conference hosted at Rothamsted Research (Harpenden, UK). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Presentation at New Scientist Live event |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | A live Q+A session at New Scientist Live event in November 2020 to discuss science and how imaging can help advance science. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://live.newscientist.com/exhibitors/rothamsted-research#/ |
Description | Presentation at UK-BRC 2020 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | New findings presented at the Annual UK-BRC conference held virtually in Nov 2020. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Smita Kurup participated in New Scientist Live event with a focus on ' How Bioimaging can help research' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | focus on ' How Bioimaging can help research' |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Talk at Annual Stakeholder meeting |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Annual BRAVO sLoLa stakeholder meetings where members of the breeding/growing industry discuss progress on the BRAVO project. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | presentation by Laura Siles at UK-BRC Nov 2020 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Oilseed seed traits trade-offs' by Laura Siles at UK-BRC Nov 2020 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |