题目：Development of Drought Tolerant Plants Through Molecular Tailoring of ABA Sensing
    报告人：Yafan Huang
            Performance Plants, Inc.,Ontario, Canada
    时间：2008年11月10日 14：00
    地点：实验楼报告厅
    联系人：华学军研究员(xjhua@ibcas.ac.cn)

    Drought is the most significant negative factor for plant’s productivity and maintaining crop yield under drought stress is a top priority for modern agriculture. As an innate response to water deficit, the cellular level of phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) is rapidly increased, triggering closure of stomates and direct reduction of transpirational water loss. This suggests that genetic manipulation of the stress response to ABA be a promising approach for improving plant drought tolerance. Previous genetic studies in Arabidopsis and other plants have revealed key components in the pathways for ABA biosynthesis and signaling, and several of which are implicated in regulation of water stress tolerance. Here we show that molecular manipulation of protein farnesylation in Arabidopsis, through down-regulation of either the or-subunit of farnesyltransferase, enhances the plant’s sensitivity to ABA and drought tolerance. The effectiveness of these ABA sensing genes for drought tolerance and yield protection is confirmed in canola in the field conditions through multiple years and multiple locations of field trials. These results were achieved with transgenic Brassica napus carrying down-regulation constructs of either the or subunit of farnesyltransferase driven by specific sets of promoters. Currently we are extending our molecular and physiological assessment to other components in the protein farnesylation pathway. Using protein farnesyltransferase as an effective target, we have also made significant progresses on engineering drought tolerance in other important crop species.

    Brief Autobiography of Yafan Huang

    Yafan Huang is the Sr.Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Performance Plants, Inc. He began his career as a plant biologist in Canada, where he earned his M.Sc. in plant biochemistry from Mount Allison University in 1991, and his Ph.D. in plant biochemistry and molecular biology from Dr. David Dennis’ lab at Queen’s University in 1995. Subsequently, he spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow in Joe Kieber’s lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago working in the area of plant hormone signal transduction. Yafan joined Performance Plants in 1998 and is responsible for research and development in the company.

    SELECTED REFEREED PUBLICATIONS
    1、Huang, Y. et al. (2008) Development of drought tolerant canola through genetic modulation of ABA-mediated stomatal response. Crop Sci. (Invited Review, in press).
    2、Wang, Y., Beaith, M., Chalifoux, M., Ying, J., Kuzma, M., Wan, J. & Huang, Y. (2008) Shoot-Specific Down-Regulation of Protein Farnesyltransferase (-Subunit) for Yield Protection Against Drought in Canola. Invited submission for the Abiotic Stress Special issue of Mol. Plant.
    3、Wang Y., Ying, J., Kuzma, M., Chalifoux, M., Sample, A., McArthur, C., Uchacz, T., Sarvas, C., Wan, J., Dennis, D.T., McCourt, P. & Huang, Y. (2005) Molecular tailoring of farnesylation for plant drought tolerance and yield protection. Plant J. 43: 413-424.
    4、Huang, Y., Li, H., Hutchison, C.E., Laskey, J. and Kieber, J. J. (2003) Biochemical and functional analysis of CTR1, a protein kinase that negatively regulates ethylene signaling in Arabidopsis. Plant J. 33: 221-233.
    5、Huang, Y., Li, H., Gupta, R., Morris, P.C., Luan, S. & Kieber, J. (2000) ATMPK4, an Arabidopsis homolog of mitogen-activated protein kinase, is activated in vitro by AtMEK1 through threonine phosphorylation. Plant Physiol. 122:1301-1310.
    6、Gupta, R., Huang, Y., Kieber, J. & Luan, S. (1998) Identification of a dual-specificity protein phosphatase that inactivates a MAP kinase from Arabidopsis. Plant J. 16:581-590. (Selected as the journal issue cover)
    7、Dennis, D.T., Huang, Y. & Negm, F. (1997) Chapter 8: Glycolysis, the pentose phosphate pathway and anaerobic respiration, in “Plant Metabolism”. Eds. Dennis, D.T., Turpin, D.H., Lefebvre, D.D. & Layzell, D.B, 2nd Edition. Longman Scientific & Technical, Harlow, U.K.
    8、Huang, Y. & Dennis, D.T. (1995) Histidine residues 139, 363 and 500 are essential for catalytic activity of cofactor-independent phosphoglyceromutase from developing endosperm of the castor plant. Eur. J. Biochem. 229:395-402.
    9、Huang, Y., Blakeley, S.D., McAleese, S.M., Fothergill-Gilmore, L.A. & Dennis, D.T. (1993) Higher-plant cofactor-independent phosphoglyceromutase: purification, molecular characterization and expression. Plant Mol. Biol. 23:1039-1053.

INVITED CONFERENCE PLENARY SPEAKER
    Annual Meeting of Canadian Society of Plant Physiologists, Ottawa, Canada (June 2008);
    The Auther M. Sackler Colloquium at the National Academy of Sciences of the USA on “From Functional Genomics of Model Organisms to Crop Plants for Global Health”, NAS Building, Washington DC (April 2006);
    2nd Canadian Plant Genomics Workshop, Quebec City, Canada (Aug 2004);
    Keystone Symposia on Plant Responses to Abiotic Stress, Santa Fe, USA (Feb 2004);
    Team Canada of Biotechnology Visit to Brazil, Argentina and Chile;
    Canadian Embassies (March 2000);
    DOE/NSF/USDA Triagency Phosphorylation Workshop, Protein Phosphorylation Group, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA (May 1997);
    Department of Biology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, USA (Feb 1996);
    Department of Biology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada (1995)
   
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