# Elucidating how drought stress reprograms genome activity

> **NIH NIH F32** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · 2020 · $64,926

## Abstract

Project Summary
Organisms evolved to survive and reproduce in an environment that changes along many dimensions. As a
consequence, genomes respond to environmental stress through major alterations in gene expression. In
eukaryotes, environmental and developmental signals interact with the genome through chromatin, thus
understanding the role of chromatin structure in the activation of stress dependent gene expression programs
is crucial. Therefore, we need new studies dissecting the mechanisms controlling stress responses that are
well grounded in organismal physiology. Plants provide a unique opportunity to address this issue. To support
a sessile lifestyle, plants evolved sophisticated mechanisms to adjust their growth and physiology to confront
environmental challenges such as drought, a major limitation on plant growth. Importantly, both the frequency
and severity of droughts will likely increase in the near future due to climate change. In dry soil plant cells
experience osmotic stress which triggers the differential expression of thousands of genes, a reprogramming of
gene expression known as the osmotic stress response. Stressed plant tissues accumulate the hormone
abscisic acid (ABA), and ABA signaling further coordinates drought stress transcriptional responses. Despite
the massive scale of these transcriptional changes we know little about their accompanying regulation by
chromatin structure nor is it clear how ABA hormone signaling is integrated into the larger osmotic stress
response. Additionally, our knowledge of the transcriptional regulators mediating the osmotic stress response
is far from complete. Using the reference plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a powerful genetic model system, the
proposed research will uncover the regulatory program mediating the response to osmotic stress in plant roots.
The specific aims of the proposal are: (1) To test if osmotic stress driven changes in chromatin structure
prime the genome for subsequent stress hormone induced gene expression using cell type specific genomics.
(2) To carry out a focused RNAi screen to identify novel transcriptional regulators functioning in the osmotic
stress response. (3) To directly visualize the impact of osmotic stress on nuclear structure and dynamics using
confocal microscopy on live plant roots.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9992471
- **Project number:** 1F32GM137544-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
- **Principal Investigator:** Charles Anthony Seller
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $64,926
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-06-01 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9992471

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9992471, Elucidating how drought stress reprograms genome activity (1F32GM137544-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9992471. Licensed CC0.

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