Resumen
The increasing population and the adverse climate conditions predicted for the next years will require a change in
agricultural practices to improve crop yield under adverse situations. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the world population will reach more than 9 billion people by 2050. This huge increase in population will require a 70% increment in staple crop food production to guarantee food security. Moreover, climate change studies anticipate warmer temperatures and an increase in extreme droughts, especially in key agricultural areas. In anticipation for the increasing drought, the so-called Blue Revolution, evaluated by the United Nations as an urgent priority, calls to develop innovative solutions to grow staple food crops in water-limited conditions to facilitate food security. At the center of plant biotechnology's efforts to develop highly water-efficient plants is the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA).
Under stress, plants produce the hormone ABA that is essential for the adaptation and survival to adverse conditions. ABA perception involves ligand binding by PYR/PYL receptors, and interaction of the ligand and receptor complex with PP2Cs.
The formation of the ternary complex, receptor-ABA-PP2C, inhibits the phosphatase activity of PP2Cs, enabling the
activation of ABA regulated transcription factors and ion channels and the tolerance to stress. It has been previously reported that inactivation or reduction of PP2C protein levels is a good strategy to increase plant performance under drought stress. In this proposal we will develop synthetic molecules to control PP2C degradation on demand by using targeted protein degradation through PROteolysis TArgeting Chimeras technology (PROTACs). PROTACs are small molecules that recruit a protein of interest to an E3-ligase for its degradation. PROTACs have been successfully employed for the degradation of different types of target proteins related to various diseases, including cancer, viral infection, immune disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases. However, this is an unexplored field in plant biology. In PlantDegraders we will develop the first set of PROTAC molecules for plant biology. We will design them to degrade PP2C proteins, in order to increase the drought tolerance of maize plants, a staple food crop instrumental for food security. The scientific results of this proposal will be ground braking attracting also the interest of biotech companies.
