Dandelions (Taraxacum agg.) are one of the most important plants for insects, providing up to 80% of early spring pollen production in meadows. This high pollen production is surprising and unfavourable from the plant’s perspective as most dandelions reproduce asexually (apomixis). Decreased selection on nutritious pollen is therefore expected and would lead to lower production and degenerate (poor) pollen, or even complete male sterility, in the absence of sex. This would have potentially disastrous consequences for the dependent insects, especially in areas of higher latitude (e.g. Sweden) where sexual dandelions are absent. Little is known, however, about the evolutionary effects of asexuality on pollen production, particularly from a genomic point-of-view. We aim to understand how pollen degenerates under asexuality through a combination of phenotypic and genotypic characterisations in sexual and asexual dandelions, including male sterile plants: 1) microscopy and flow cytometry will reveal the effect of asexuality on pollen number, morphology and viability; 2) comparative transcriptomics in pollen, petals, bracts and leaves will reveal pollen-specific genes and if they are down-regulated under asexuality; 3) comparative transcriptomics in anthers will reveal genes necessary for healthy pollen production; 4) comparative genomics using full gene sequences will reveal the rate of deleterious mutation accumulation in pollen-specific genes, for which museum specimens will be unlocked using a customised Hyb-Seq approach. The fellow will fill significant skill gaps in their career through training in gene expression studies, whilst establishing themselves in plant reproductive biology. NoSexPoorPollen will be the first study to compare pollen gene expression in sexual and asexual plants. By combining phenotypic and genomic studies on pollen under asexuality, we provide an impactful and clear indication of the amount of insect food lost in the absence of dandelion sex.

We propose the most fundamental, ambitious and concerted, multi-disciplinary investigation into the understanding of crystal growth and rational design of open framework, nano-porous materials yet attempted. We believe the findings from this study will mark a major leap forward into our understanding of crystal growth and our ability to exploit our understanding to produce new materials with unique properties and applications. Extensive studies on the synthesis of porous materials have been carried out. However, the majority of this synthetic work has been aimed primarily at either (i) the discovery of new structures, (ii) modification or improvement of existing materials or (iii) process development to enable such materials to be produced successfully on a large scale. The effort so far on synthesis and crystallisation mechanism has yielded many positive results but also many unanswered questions, for example: (i) the detailed mechanism of nucleation (ii) the identity of growth species and (iii) whether nanocrystal growth occurs by addition or aggregation. This research involves the application of a powerful set of complementary techniques to the study of crystal growth of open-framework materials comprising: atomic force microscopy, high resolution transmission and scanning electron microscopies, in-situ NMR with enhanced data processing, X-ray diffraction and mass spectrometry. A substantially better understanding of the synthesis process is likely to yield important economic benefits, for example, better process control, increased efficiency in reagent usage, improved reproducibility and the capacity to modify or tailor products for specific applications. Perhaps most important of all would be the ability to identify successful synthetic routes to as-yet unknown structures and compositions which have been predicted on theoretical grounds to have beneficial characteristics. Such a step forward to a new level of primary understanding would open the way to innovative applications in chemistry, physics (ordered arrays) and biomaterials.

A definitive conclusion about the dangers associated with human or animal exposure to a particular nanomaterial can currently be made upon complex and costly procedures including complete NM characterisation with consequent careful and well-controlled in vivo experiments. A significant progress in the ability of the robust nanotoxicity prediction can be achieved using modern approaches based on one hand on systems biology, on another hand on statistical and other computational methods of analysis. In this project, using a comprehensive self-consistent study, which includes in-vivo, in-vitro and in-silico research, we address main respiratory toxicity pathways for representative set of nanomaterials, identify the mechanistic key events of the pathways, and relate them to interactions at bionano interface via careful post-uptake nanoparticle characterisation and molecular modelling. This approach will allow us to formulate novel set of toxicological mechanism-aware end-points that can be assessed in by means of economic and straightforward tests. Using the exhaustive list of end-points and pathways for the selected nanomaterials and exposure routs, we will enable clear discrimination between different pathways and relate the toxicity pathway to the properties of the material via intelligent QSARs. If successful, this approach will allow grouping of materials based on their ability to produce the pathway-relevant key events, identification of properties of concern for new materials, and will help to reduce the need for blanket toxicity testing and animal testing in the future.