叶绿体蛋白AtPCD8调控拟南芥程序性细胞死亡及光合作用功能的机理研究

Programmed cell death (PCD) is an active, genetically regulated process of cellular suicide and is well known to play a fundamental role in development, differentiation, cell homeostasis, and response to environment. Chloroplast has a very important function in plant PCD initiation and propagation. However, little is known about PCD signal pathways and mechanisms in chloroplast of plants. We have isolated a batch of mutants showing a phenotype of PCD under normal growth conditions by screening Arabidopsis T-DNA insertion and RNAi mutant library, we named these mutants as Atpcd. We plan to study one of mutant Atpcd8 in this study. Bioinformatics analysis showed AtPCD8 encodes a chloroplast targeted protein with unknown functions. We plan to characterize molecular mechanisms of the chloroplast protein AtPCD8 in regulating programmed cell death and photosynthetic function by integration of molecular, genetics and biochemistry approaches. Implementation of this project has very important implications for elucidation of the new mechanisms of chloroplast mediated programmed cell death and photosynthesis regulation, and improvement of crop yield.

程序性细胞死亡（programmed cell death, PCD）在植物生长与发育、细胞分化与稳态及环境响应等过程中有着重要功能。研究表明，叶绿体是植物程序性细胞死亡信号产生以及发生的重要场所之一。然而，有关叶绿体介导程序性细胞死亡的信号通路与作用机理仍不清楚。通过筛选拟南芥T-DNA插入和RNA干扰突变体库，我们分离到一些在光下呈现程序性细胞死亡表型的突变体，并将这些突变体命名为Atpcd。在本项目中，我们拟研究其中一个突变体Atpcd8。基因克隆及生物信息学分析表明，AtPCD8是一个核基因编码的功能未知的定位于叶绿体的蛋白。本项目旨在运用分子生物学、遗传学以及生物化学等手段阐明AtPCD8调控程序性细胞死亡和光合作用功能的分子及生理机制。本项目的研究结果将对于我们揭示叶绿体介导的程序性细胞死亡、光合作用功能调控的新机理以及改良作物提高产量方面均具有重要意义。