About the project

Network Landscape of Photothermal Flowering in Soybean

A growing concern in the world is the changes in crop performance associated with global climate change. In soybean, flowering transition is regulated by the interaction between photoperiods and temperature, known as photothermal effects. To clarify the molecular mechanisms of photothermal flowering in soybean, the project will employ interdisciplinary approaches including: 1) elucidation of global gene expression patterns underlying photothermal flowering of soybean, 2) identification of key transcription factor-target interactions and protein-protein interactions of more than 20 transcription factors in the photothermal flowering gene network, 3) reverse engineering of the photothermal flowering gene network using transcriptome and interactome data as well as other biological side information by developing algorithmic methods and pipelines for network inference, and 4) mathematical modeling of the photothermal flowering gene network to provide a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms accounting for the genetic interactions and their functions, and biological relevance of genetic interactions implemented in the photothermal flowering gene network. All data, biological resources and bioinformatics tools obtained in this work will be made available through a project website and through public community portals that include NCBI SRA and SoyBase.