Improving stress tolerance in the bioenergy crop switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) by investigating and engineering terpene metabolic networks

• Applicant: Dr. Kira Juliane Tiedge
• Subject Area: Plant Physiology ; Plant Biochemistry and Biophysics
• Term: from 2019 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 425991814

• Final Report Year: 2022

Final Report Abstract

This large, collaborative research project integrates functional genomics, metabolomics, protein biochemical, and genetic approaches to investigate the mechanisms that govern environmental stress tolerance in the bioenergy crop switchgrass. Specifically, this work aims to understand the biosynthesis, evolution and physiological function of specialized metabolites in switchgrass that have probable functions in drought adaptation. This project has not only generated detailed insights into switchgrass specialized metabolites and their corresponding biosynthetic genes that contribute to plant-environment interactions, but also developed advanced pipelines for correlating genomic and metabolomic data for the analysis of plant stress responses, which are now applied to several follow-up projects.

Publications

• (2020). Genomics-enabled analysis of specialized metabolism in bioenergy crops: current progress and challenges. Synthetic Biology
  Tiedge, K., Muchlinski, A., & Zerbe, P.
  
• (2021). Cytochrome P450-catalyzed biosynthesis of furanoditerpenoids in the bioenergy crop switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.). Plant J.
  Muchlinski, A., Jia, M., Tiedge, K., Fell, J.S., Pelot, K.A., Chew, L., Davisson, D., Chen, Y., Siegel, J., Lovell, J.T. and Zerbe, P.