Functional analysis of barley genes involved in DNA Damage Response (DDR) activation in response to heat stress. HORIZON-MSCA-2023-DN-01, project number: 101169110

In the context of climate change, agriculture faces growing challenges. Northern Europe is expected to experience longer, warmer, and more humid summers, while southern Europe will suffer increasing heat and drought stress — all of which threaten food security. There is an urgent need to train a new generation of scientists capable of developing crops resilient to climate stress.

Environmental stress inhibits plant growth, a key factor in yield loss. Understanding stress responses, particularly in growing tissues like root and shoot meristems, is crucial. Under stress, plants shift metabolism from growth to survival, leading to prolonged growth reduction. A major challenge is to decouple growth repression from stress tolerance mechanisms to maintain yield stability.

Plants activate the DNA Damage Response (DDR) to repair stress-induced DNA lesions. DDR halts the cell cycle, affects stem cells, and can trigger cell death, contributing to growth inhibition. While DDR is well studied in animals, its role in plant stress adaptation remains underexplored. Evidence suggests that DDR is triggered by multiple stresses and is vital for early development. Understanding how DDR contributes to stress responses without impairing growth is key to breeding resilient crops.

Heat stress (HS) is especially damaging, cannot be controlled in the field, and is expected to intensify. DDR mechanisms are central to the HS response, making their study essential. The HEATDDR consortium, composed of experts in plant DDR, development, and stress physiology, aims to explore the link between DDR and HS.

Within HEATDDR, nine Doctoral Candidates (DCs) will be recruited. The DC based at the University of Silesia will work under Dr. Miriam Szurman-Zubrzycka in the Plant Genetics and Functional Genomics (PGFG) Group on the project:

“Functional analysis of barley genes involved in DNA Damage Response (DDR) activation in response to heat stress.”

Barley is the world’s fourth most important cereal crop. PGFG has developed TILLING mutants in ATR and NAC8 (SOG1) genes and shown that aluminum-induced genotoxic stress activates DDR via ATR. This project will extend these findings to heat stress by:

-Identifying TILLING mutants in ATM

-Developing CRISPR/Cas9 knock-outs for ATM, ATR, and NAC8 (SOG1)

-Evaluating mutant responses to heat stress

-Performing RNA-Seq/scRNA-Seq on selected mutants under control and HS conditions

These tasks will be carried out by the recruited Doctoral Candidate.

We are looking for  highly motivated Doctoral Candidate (DC) to fill positions in University of Sielsia, Poland, in our Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) Doctoral Network HeatDDR. Partners laboratories are located in France, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Italy.

Career development and international mobility of researchers is a key concept within the MSCA-DN framework. The combination of academic training in cutting-edge techniques with intensive interactions with non-academic partners who are directly involved in plant breeding will prepare DCs for the challenges ahead in developing sustainable crop production strategies and enhance their employability in both the academic and the non-academic sectors.

Research will be carried out in the frame of the project „ HEATDDR – Harnessing the DNA Damage Response to improve plant tolerance to heat stress” (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-DN-01, project number: 101169110), financed by the European Union under the Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks programme.

These tasks will be carried out by the recruited Doctoral Candidate.

Requirements:

• 1.      MSc diploma in biology, biotechnology or a related field
• 2.      Fluent in English (spoken and written)
• 3.      Basic laboratory skills, including PCR, DNA/RNA isolation, and CRISPR/Cas9.
• 4.      Experience in transcrytpomic data analysis, particularly RNA-seq
• 5.      Strong motivation for research and the ability to work both independently and in an international team.
• 6.      Willingness to travel and participate in secondments, training schools, and consortium meetings as part of the MSCA Doctoral Network.
• 7.      Compliance with the MSCA mobility rule: candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the host country (Poland) for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before the recruitment date.