Award Abstract #0724168
Arabidopsis 2010: Affinity Handle on Macromolecular Complexes

NSF Org:	DBI Division of Biological Infrastructure
Initial Amendment Date:	January 9, 2008
Latest Amendment Date:	May 12, 2008
Award Number:	0724168
Award Instrument:	Continuing grant
Program Manager:	Diane Jofuku Okamuro DBI Division of Biological Infrastructure BIO Directorate for Biological Sciences
Start Date:	January 15, 2008
Expires:	December 31, 2010 (Estimated)
Awarded Amount to Date:	$800000
Investigator(s):	Dmitry Belostotsky belostotskyd@umkc.edu (Principal Investigator) Nevan Krogan (Co-Principal Investigator)
Sponsor:	University of Missouri-Kansas City 5100 Rockhill Road Kansas City, MO 64110 816/235-1303
NSF Program(s):	THE 2010 PROJECT
Field Application(s):
Program Reference Code(s):	BIOT, 9109, 1684
Program Element Code(s):	1684

ABSTRACT

Networks of macromolecular interactions are fundamental to all biological processes. Until recently, the progress of functional networks studies in Arabidopsis has been propelled primarily by genetic-based approaches. On the other hand, the enormous potential of high-throughput studies of defined macromolecular entities has not been fully realized, largely because reliable affinity tag-enabled fractionation tools remain unavailable to most Arabidopsis researchers. To facilitate these studies, this project will develop and deliver a suite of high throughput cloning-adapted vectors incorporating quantitatively characterized tandem affinity tags, for rapid proteomic and RNomic analyses of Arabidopsis macromolecular complexes. In addition, the project will generate a set of robust purification protocols tailored to the specific affinity tags. These tangible deliverables will be disseminated to the Arabidopsis research community via the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center (for binary vectors and plant lines), professional publications, TAIR as well as the project website (the purification protocols). This contribution will enable systems-level studies in a variety of areas of plant biology by many groups presently prevented from doing so by prohibitive cost of conducting the optimization studies in-house.



Broader Impacts. In addition to the tangible deliverables for the Arabidopsis research community in the form of vectors, plant lines and experimental protocols, this project will also make significant contributions to long-standing goals of NSF of integrating research, training and education. First, it will provide an outstanding interdisciplinary training for graduate students and a postdoctoral associate that involves a wide range of approaches, different kinds of expertise, and engages collaborators at two different sites. Second, every semester two undergraduates will be trained and incorporated into the project team at UMKC - an urban institution with >20% students coming from underrepresented minority groups, i.e. considerably higher than national average. Third, the project will establish, in collaboration with the Institute for Urban Education (IUE) at UMKC, a rigorous and innovative "wet bench/e-bench" practical course that is custom-tailored to the needs and the mission of IUE to train science teachers specifically with the explicit goal of reducing the achievement gap for urban K-12 students.

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