UF Receives $5 Million NSF Grant For Genetic Research On Corn

September 18, 2000

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — To learn how genes control development of corn and other cereal grains — the source of about 90 percent of the world’s food supply — University of Florida researchers have initiated a five-year study with the aid of a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

Corn, also known as maize, was selected as the target crop because of its worldwide economic importance and the fact that it’s an “ideal model” for gene research, said Donald McCarty, professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

He said many of the genes that are important in corn may be applicable to other crops. For example, the gene that controls the yield in sweet corn may also control the yield in tomatoes.

“The future success of agriculture depends on identifying genes that will make plants more efficient in converting sunlight, nutrients and water into food and fiber products,” McCarty said. “Conventional plant breeding now boosts crop yields by about 1 percent annually. In coming years, biotechnology will make breeding even more efficient.”

He said biotech will reveal the genetic basis for many traits, including disease and insect susceptibility, biochemical composition and nutritive value. Breeders will be able to use genetic tests and markers to identify subtle but desirable traits in crops more readily. The application of modern molecular biology will allow desirable traits to be directly “engineered” into crop lines.

McCarty, a seed geneticist who leads the project, said researchers will be focusing on how genes affect the development and metabolism of the corn seed or endosperm. Other scientists working on the project are Curtis Hannah and Karen Koch, professors in UF’s horticultural sciences department.

UF is the lead institution for the study that also involves researchers at the University of Arizona, Iowa State University and Rutgers University. The NSF grant is the second major project for faculty who are members of UF’s new Genetics Institute, formed last year to foster collaborative research across many disciplines.

McCarty said UF is developing the genetic material, which is a large population of specially bred maize plants. Arizona, Iowa State and Rutgers are providing molecular tools, including the development of a large array of gene clones expressed in the endosperm.

“Our research will focus directly on the endosperm, which is the most important component of the seed,” McCarty said. “When you eat sweet corn, you’re consuming the endosperm. It is the harvestable component of all cereal grains such as barley, rice and wheat.”

He said corn plants contain more than 40,000 genes, and researchers want to learn more about the subset of those 40,000 genes that are important to agriculture, particularly from the standpoint of plant growth, metabolism, disease resistance and crop yield.

“The research will let us look at the biochemical functions those genes encode and really understand the nuts and bolts of how those genes control development of the endosperm and other plant structures,” McCarty said.

In order to determine the function of a particular gene, scientists need to understand what happens when that gene is disrupted or eliminated from the plant.

“It’s a little bit like trying to figure out how your car works by removing parts and asking what doesn’t work,” McCarty said. “While our genetic strategy may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, historically it’s proven to be a powerful way to understand the function of biological systems.”

“In purely scientific terms, the goal of our project is a comprehensive genetic dissection of the molecular mechanisms underlying endosperm development and metabolism,” McCarty said.

“By analyzing mutations that disrupt the endosperm, we can identify specific genes that control endosperm development. Molecular analysis of such mutants will in term lead to other genes that function in the same or interacting processes.”

Terry Flotte, interim director of UF’s Genetics Institute, said the maize project is in response to NSF’s new initiative in plant genome research. Out of 75 grant proposals submitted to NSF by U.S. universities, the UF project is one of four that received major funding.

He said the NSF grant provides additional support to the Genetics Institute. Earlier this month, the institute received a $5 million grant from National Institutes of Health for liver research.

“We’re building the institute on the strength of having national leaders in gene therapy in medicine and plant genomics in agriculture,” Flotte said.