StrigoSense

Strigolactones are a class of plant hormones that participate in many plant environmental interactions, including responses to drought. Much still has to be understood about how they mediate plant responses to abiotic stresses, but their mapping and quantification in plant tissues is extremely difficult. Some strigolactone biosensors are available, but they all suffer from some technical limitations: namely they are negative sensors whose signal is degraded in the presence of strigolactone, and they require laborious and invasive techniques for signal detection.

StrigoSense thus aims to combine plant synthetic biology and plant molecular physiology to construct a novel strigolactone biosensor which is positively activated in the presence of these hormones. The biosensor core module can be paired with various reporter systems to accommodate a variety of users and research applications. We will use fluorescent and bioluminescent reporters for the non-invasive spatiotemporal monitoring of plant responses to strigolactones at the cell and system level in Arabidopsis and tomato plants. This will constitute the first instance of a strigolactone biosensor tested in a crop, narrowing the gap between model and agriculturally relevant species.

With StrigoSense, we will seek to monitor plant responses to different abiotic stresses and to an array of strigolactone-like compounds and biostimulants with the potential of acting as priming agents that help plants cope with recurring water deficits. The technical advantages of StrigoSense will make strigolactone biosensors faster, cheaper and more high-throughput, with benefits for basic and applied research.

Structure and research applications of the StrigoSense biosensor. (A) Structure and activation mechanism of StrigoSense. (B) Possible reporter outputs and analytical approaches addressed in this project. Image created with Biorender.com