Engineering root architecture and root-microbiome interactions for sustainable agriculture.

As a result of climate change, agriculture is facing the twin challenges of unpredictable rainfall and rapid expansions in the geographical ranges of pests and pathogens. These are expected to negatively impact food production, challenging the UK economy and our ability to feed a growing world population. Increasing the use of agrochemicals is undesirable due to negative consequences to biodiversity and plant pathogen resistance. A sustainable alternative is to develop plant varieties with improved genetics that are better suited for cultivation in a changing climate, and to promote plant-beneficial bacteria colonisation increasing nutrients available to the plant and protecting it from pathogens.

An essential and hidden part of plants are their roots, which mediate nutrient and water uptake. In the context of climate change, root systems need to become more resilient to recurrent droughts and more efficient at absorbing scarce resources from the soil. Nutrient and water uptake is achieved through interactions with beneficial soil micro-organisms present in the soil, which help the root to absorb nutrients and protect the plants from pathogens. Therefore, improving both the root structure of plants and the symbiosis between the root and its microbiome is a promising strategy to support sustainable crop production.

I will engineer root and root microbiomes, developing plants with deep-root architecture, suited to foraging for limited water supplies and engineer interactions between plants and beneficial microbes to promote nutrient uptake. To do this, I will use my unique expertise in an innovative technology based on integrases: enzymes that mediate site-specific and irreversible changes to DNA sequences. In previous work, I have used integrases to induce the expression of genes under specific combinations of signals in bacteria and plants. This technological development shows that this project is timely in allowing the application of engineering principles to...