Genomic and molecular studies in Oxytropis (Fabaceae) to find cold adaptation mechanisms in arctic plants
Plant Science Seminar, live on Zoom. Juan Carlos Camargo Tavares, PhD Research Proposal
The impact of climate change is already tangible around the globe. In Canada, the unpredictability of extreme weather events such as frost, poses concerns as it can negatively affect crop production. Research into cold tolerant plants are therefore of great importance. In the present study, arctic and temperate growing members of the Oxytropis genus (Fabaceae) are used as model system to find molecular mechanisms behind cold tolerant plants. Two Oxytropis genome sequences will be assembled and annotated, one from an arctic species (O. arctobia) and the second from a temperate species (O. splendens). Cold transcriptome profiling will be performed on these cold-tolerant plants and the new genome sequences will be used as references to analyze the data. Novel cis-regulatory motifs will be predicted by analyzing the promoter sequences of cold-induced genes. Finally, previously generated reporter-gene constructs that contain promoters of the cold-inducible KS dehydrin gene from O. splendens and the promoter from its constitutive orthologue in O. arctobia, will be tested in the model legume Lotus japonicus to identify the putative regulatory motifs that trigger the induction of the gene.
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