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Research collaboration with South African university to improve crop tolerance The University of Missouri system has had a decades-long collaboration with the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa that includes faculty and student exchanges and research collaborations. CAFNR faculty member, Abe Koo, has been able to utilize this collaboration to advance science for both countries. South Africa is facing serious agricultural challenges due to climatic change and population growth. In South Africa, 91% of the soil is arid and only 13% is cultivable, while 1% is suitable for rain-fed crops. South Africa is already receiving low rainfall, and drought has hit the Western Cape and other provinces since 2017. A genetic engineering approach is being tapped into by researchers at CAFNR and UWC as a tool to combat these challenges by developing crops more resilient to environmental threats. Research collaboration between Koo, associate professor of biochemistry, and Takalani Mulaudzi-Masuku (UWC) began in 2019, supported by the University of Missouri South African Education program (UMSAEP). Despite some interruption by the pandemic in 2020, the collaboration resumed in 2021 with the financial support from a CAFNR International Collaboration Grant. The two labs are collaborating on a project to elucidate the role of a guanylate cyclase gene named AtNOGC1 and nitric oxide in conferring stress tolerance to plants. Additionally, the two have collaborated more broadly on topics related to stress signaling. Recently, they elucidated a mechanism involved in the production of plant hormone jasmonate. Jasmonate is produced within a few minutes of insect attacks but it remained elusive until now as to how this rapid response occurs in plant cells. Part of this work has been accepted for publication in the journal Plant Physiology (2022). More investigation about this topic is currently under way in Koo’s lab with grant support from the National Science Foundation-Integrative Organismal Systems Program. For more information about the UMSAEP program, contact Kerry Clark, director of CAFNR International Programs, at clarkk@missouri.edu. |
