More than defence: primary roles for cyanogenic glucosides

Adaptation to climate change for agricultural purposes requires in depth knowledge of how plants respond to extreme weather events. Many important crop plants make toxic cyanide (cyanogenic glucosides) as a defence against herbivores, the amount varying with environmental conditions such as drought. This project will reveal mechanisms underlying the regulation of cyanogenic glucosides in the tropical crop sorghum using nontoxic mutants, generated without the use of foreign DNA. Newly developed techniques in genomics, microscopy and spectroscopy will be used to determine when, where and why these compounds are made and characterize their multiple roles with the view to developing new crops ready for a future hotter, drier Australia.