The role of trehalose metabolism in plant growth and stress responses

Abstract

This thesis started with defining plant stress resilience and its societal significance in Chapter 1. We realized that not just the absolute yield matters to farmers but rather the predictability of the yield given the agricultural practices in the socio-economic context. Climate change challenges the predictability of yield, calling for crops and agricultural practices resilient to less predictable environment. Historically crop breeding has most significantly increased crop yield, particularly in the most recent times. We therefore expect crop breeding to contribute significantly to climate change resilient crop production. Early breakthroughs in breeding a crop resilient to extremes in precipitation include the SCUBA rice varieties capable of tolerating submergence. These are proof of concept achievements that illustrate the importance of understanding crop stress at the molecular level. Taken together results obtained in this thesis begin to unravel the role of trehalose metabolism in plant growth and development by way of the biosynthetic precursor T6P. It is very well possible that T6P may also be responsible for priming the plants to a variety of stress responses because plants altered in SnRK1 activity have been shown to be tolerant to a variety of stresses. In the future we will further test the role of trehalose in stress responses and attempt at dissecting that role away from T6P.