Analysis of gene regulatory networks of maize in response to nitrogen

Nitrogen (N) fertilizer has a major influence on the yield and quality. Understanding and optimising the response of crop plants to nitrogen fertilizer usage is of central importance in enhancing food security and agricultural sustainability. In this study, the analysis of gene regulatory networks reveals multiple genes and biological processes in response to N. Two microarray studies have been used to infer components of the nitrogen-response network. Since they used different array technologies, a map linking the two probe sets to the maize B73 reference genome has been generated to allow comparison. Putative Arabidopsis homologues of maize genes were used to query the Biological General Repository for Interaction Datasets (BioGRID) network, which yielded the potential involvement of three transcription factors (TFs) (GLK5, MADS64 and bZIP108) and a Calcium-dependent protein kinase. An Artificial Neural Network was used to identify influential genes and retrieved bZIP108 and WRKY36 as significant TFs in both microarray studies, along with genes for Asparagine Synthetase, a dual-specific protein kinase and a protein phosphatase. The output from one study also suggested roles for microRNA (miRNA) 399b and Nin-like Protein 15 (NLP15). Co-expression-network analysis of TFs with closely related profiles to known Nitrate-responsive genes identified GLK5, GLK8 and NLP15 as candidate regulators of genes repressed under low Nitrogen conditions, while bZIP108 might play a role in gene activation

Differential alternative splicing genes in response to boron deficiency in Brassica napus

Alternative splicing (AS) can increase transcriptome diversity, protein diversity and protein yield, and is an important mechanism to regulate plant responses to stress. Oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.), one of the main oil crops in China, shows higher sensitivity to boron (B) deficiency than other species. Here, we demonstrated AS changes that largely increased the diversity of the mRNA expressed in response to B deficiency in B. napus. Each gene had two or more transcripts on average. A total of 33.3% genes in both Qingyou10 (QY10, B-efficient cultivar) and Westar10 (W10, B-inefficient cultivar) showed AS in both B conditions. The types of AS events were mainly intron retention, 3′ alternative splice site, 5′ alternative splice site and exon skipping. The tolerance ability of QY10 was higher than that of W10, possibly because there were far more differential alternative splicing (DAS) genes identified in QY10 at low B conditions than in W10. The number of genes with both DAS and differentially expressed (DE) was far lower than that of the genes that were either with DAS or DE in QY10 and W10, suggesting that the DAS and DE genes were independent. Four Serine/Arginine-rich (SR) splicing factors, BnaC06g14780D, BnaA01g14750D, BnaA06g15930D and BnaC01g41640D, underwent differentially alternative splicing in both cultivars. There existed gene–gene interactions between BnaC06g14780D and the genes associated with the function of B in oilseed rape at low B supply. This suggests that oilseed rape could regulate the alterative pre-mRNA splicing of SR protein related genes to increase the plant tolerance to B deficiency

The effect of triazole fungicide application timing on disease control, crop development and yield in oilseed rape

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo