Assistant Professor Colby College Waterville, Maine
Body of Abstract: Plants are barraged by environmental stresses and have evolved an arsenal of molecular responses to mitigate the damage they incur. One such response is the post-translational attachment of small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO) to a vast array of mostly nuclear proteins within minutes of stress. While genetic analyses demonstrate that SUMOylation is important for stress resilience, it is still unclear how this modification protects plants. A better understanding could provide new strategies for crop improvement. Most plant SUMO studies thus far were conducted in flowering plants. However, the moss Physcomitrium patens presents a compelling alternative model system because its’ simple genetics and body plan, ease of transformation, size, and amenability to microscopy make it ideal for rapid gene function analyses. To create a roadmap for understanding SUMO in moss, we used computational approaches to define the moss SUMO system genes and their expression levels, and immunoblotting to determine conditions that trigger the SUMOylation response. Furthermore, we used CRISPR/Cas9 and RNAi to develop a suite of mutants to dissect the importance of the SUMO machinery, and His-tagged SUMO lines for identifying SUMOylated proteins. Collectively, this work builds a foundation for deeper exploration of SUMO’s role in plant stress protection.