Hydrosensing

Water stress is an increasing problem for global agriculture given the impact of climate change. Europe experienced the full impact of water stress during 2022. Despite its devastating environmental, economic and societal effects, how plants sense water stress remains unknown. Therefore, new knowledge is vital to underpin efforts to design climate resilient crops and close this fundamental gap in our scientific understanding.

The HYDROSENSING project will address this critical knowledge gap to discover how plants sense water stress. Our recent studies have revealed water stress is sensed by a specialised vascular cell type that controls synthesis and release of the abiotic stress signal ABA (Mehra et al, Science, in press). We hypothesise this specialised cell type senses water stress-induced changes in hydraulic flux via perturbations in plasma membrane-cell wall contact using receptor kinases like THESEUS1 that control release of ABA. The missing components of the water sensing machinery will be identified using an innovative multi-targeted CRISPR approach designed to overcome genetic redundancy. Our discoveries will unlock the mechanism enabling sensing of the most important molecule on the planet, WATER, in the most abundant lifeform biomass-wise, PLANTS.

Solving how plants sense water demands a highly inter-disciplinary strategy that goes beyond the current state of the art by pioneering the development of innovative genome editing, functional imaging and structural biology approaches. The breadth and depth of capabilities and expertise to undertake this strategy necessitates a synergistic partnership between world-leading groups. By pursuing this ambitious high risk/high gain strategy, our project promises to reveal common ‘design principles’ that underpin the core mechanism(s) for water stress signalling in plants. This new knowledge is crucial for the international efforts to design climate resilient crops and underpin global food security.