The Millennium Nucleus for the Development of Super Adaptable Plants (MN-SAP) will be a center of excellence in Plant Cell and Molecular Biology, Biotechnology and Plant Microbiology. Our main goal is to enhance plant productivity by improving Pi-uptake and translocation under different stressors and their combination. To achieve this, we propose to gather diverse approaches and synergistic team capabilities to produce fundamental knowledge. First, in the model plant Arabidopsis, and then transfer it to Tomato as a reliable model of fleshy fruit species. We propose to identify the most beneficial plant-microbe associations highlighting plant functions/genes to achieve enhanced Pi-uptake and translocation under these two stresses. Our long-term goal is to transfer knowledge from Arabidopsis and tomato (Micro-Tom) selected microbial communities to a fruit model plant by an integrative approach. We envision that the knowledge acquired in this project would be transferred in the future to breeders and growers to obtain super adaptable and highly resilient plants using a multidimensional perspective: using non-transgenic genome editing techniques, fast breeding techniques, and exploiting plant interactions with beneficial microorganisms. To the best of our knowledge, this approach has not been taken by any other millennium centers in Chile, as neither in Latin America.

MN-SAP team is composed of experts in plant root cell and molecular biology (Director José Estevez), soil microbiota, pathobiota, and insect interactions with plants (Alternate Director Dra. Francisca Blanco, and the Principal Researcher (PI) Dra. Josefina Poupin), plant genetics and omics-approaches (PI Dr. Claudio Meneses), plant physiology and productivity (PI Dr. Carlos Figueroa), and nutrient homeostasis in Plants (PI Andrea Vega and Ad. Ricardo Cabeza). Our MN-SAP team will have the support of three outstanding senior researchers (Dr. Ariel Orellana, Dr. Julio Salinas, and Dr. Bernardo Gonzalez) with a long trajectory in plant biology, plant stress, and microbiology, respectively. Our MN-SAP team has international recognition and has made significant discoveries in the fields of expertise covered in this proposal with the support of an excellent network of national and international well-known scientists and a Chilean agro-biotech company (SynergiaBIO). Finally, we have a very aspiring plan to develop the talent of new and young researchers as well as to positively impact our society and agriculture industry.