Plantalech Casas, Oleguer

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Facultat de Biociències

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Interrogating evolution to identify genes for drought-resistance in Zea mays L. in the face of global warmingOleguer Plantalech CasalsINTRODUCTIONCONCLUSIONSREFERENCES• Agarwal, P.K. et al. (2006). Role of DREB transcription factors in abiotic and biotic stress tolerance in plants. Plant Cell Rep 25: 1263-1274.• Ashraf, M. (2010). Inducing drought tolerance in plants: Recent advances. Biotechnology Advances 28: 169-183.• Jogaiah, S. et al. (2013). Systems biology-based approaches toward understanding drought tolerance in food crops. Critical Reviews in Biotechnology 33(1): 23-39.• Lata, C. & Prasad, M. (2011). Role of DREBs in regulation of abiotic stress responses in plants. Journal of Experimental Botany 62(14): 4731-4748.• Liu, S. et al. (2013). Genome-Wide Analysis of ZmDREB Genes and Their Association with Natural Variation in Drought Tolerance at Seedling Stage of Zea Mays L. PLoS Genet9(9): e1003790. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003790Maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the mostimportant food crops in the world for feedingpeople, as forage for cattle, and forsynthesizing pharmaceutical drugs and otherproducts. Drought affects maize at every stageof growth, and global climate warmingforecasts anticipate an increase of droughtfrequency and intensity. Drought resistance inmaize is a polygenic trait, and a number ofbreeding programs have been devised throughthe years to identify treats related with thischaracter.APPROACHFig. 1. DNA binding analysis of ZmDREB2.7 anddrought stress tolerance of transgenic Arabidopsisplants (Liu et al., 2013).Fig. 2. Phenotypic response of CIMBL70,91, 92, CML118 and Shen5003 to droughtstress (Liu et al., 2013).1Analyse and clone the ZmDREB genes2Determine the function of each gene3Association analysis for each ZmDREBgene with maize varieties4Association analysis for ZmDREB2.7gene with maize varieties5Contribution of the ZmDREB2.7 gene or protein to drought tolerance6Purify the ZmDREB2.7 protein and test its distinctive function (Fig. 1)7Test the effect of ZmDREB2.7 alleles on drought tolerance by crossing varietiesThe “omics” breakthrough has provided newtools for linking the genetic changes to thephenotypic effects in specific biologicalcontexts, such as drought.Objectives. The main objective of this work isto introduce a new omics-based methodologywhich uses the evolutionary knowledge tofurther study and understand a certain trait(drought) as of correlating it with naturalvariation, consisting in analysing the naturalvariation of DREB (Dehydration ResponsibleElement Binding) genesin maize. This approach has also commercialapplications like the possibility of selectingcertain traits. Therefore, it complements thepresent classical selection techniques.Methodology. This article is a bibliographicalreview, and it has been built using databaseslike PubMed or Google Scholar. Searcheshave been done using key words such as“maize” AND “drought”. Some resources thatthe databases offer, such as related citations,have also been used.Future expectations of global warming isincreasing the need for understanding howdrought is tolerated in plants, although thecomplexity of the trait is complicating to reachthis objective.The breakthrough of omic sciences and itsadvances are fostering the emergence ofnovel approaches. The one described herehas been used before in Arabidopsis for yearsthanks to the broad knowledge of itsgenomics. Now, with the availability ofgenetically diverse collections comprisinghundreds of maize varieties, this approach hasben possible to use in this species.Therefore, the role of basic sciences likestudying, annotating and analysing thegenome of organisms has an importantrelevance not only for the theory, but also touse it in practical applications such asbreeding.

Interrogating evolution to identify genes for dought-resistance in Zea mays L. in the face of global warming

http://ddd.uab.cat/pub/tfg/2014/125994/TFG_oleguerplantalechcasas.pdf

Interrogating evolution to identify genes for dought-resistance in Zea mays L. in the face of global warming

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