Executive Summary : | Climate change is significantly impacting global agriculture and social sustainability. Rising atmospheric CO₂ increases plant photosynthesis, leading to more root and shoot biomass, but it also counteracts the level of important nutrients and their assimilation. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of plant response to elevated CO₂ is crucial for developing innovative solutions for high-yielding climate-resilient crops without impairing nutrient levels. Plant adaptive growth relies on signal communication between stem cells, meristem regions, and stress-affected organs. Brassinosteroids (BRs) are constitutive plant growth regulators that control plant adaptation to various stresses. The vascular-tissue specific BR receptor pathway is crucial for plant adaptation under adverse conditions like increasing temperatures and water deprivation. The current research proposal aims to investigate spatio-temporal diversifications of BR actions under elevated CO₂ conditions. Both elevated CO₂ and BRs have additive effects on photosynthesis and carbon assimilation. Plants exposed to elevated CO₂ for prolonged periods showed enhanced accumulation of BRs. The project will also analyze if BR pathway components coordinate local and long-distance signal mobilization to balance optimal nutrient and resource partitioning in the plant. Key questions to address include whether BRs have a role during plant adaptation to elevated CO₂, which components of the BR response pathway are involved in plant adaptation, if there is any organ/tissue/cellular level compartmentalization and context-specific activation of BR pathway components and their functional activities, and if so, how to fine-tune their function at a spatio-temporal scale. |
Co-PI: | Dr. Vivek Pandey, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh-226001, Dr. Pramod Arvind Shirke, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh-226001 |