Study of the transcriptome in Solanum lycocarpum seeds during the induction of tolerance to heat stress and water deficit.

• Grant number: 11/18262-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: January 01, 2012
• End date: July 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Crop Science
• Principal Investigator: Edvaldo Aparecido Amaral da Silva
• Grantee: Pedro Bento da Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agronômicas (FCA). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Priming of seeds improves speed and uniformity of germination, as well as providing higher tolerance to seeds and seedlings to stress conditions during germination and seedling establishment. Although it was reported, little information is available on the identification of genes differentially expressed during the priming treatment in tropical species. Therefore, this paper aims to study gene expression in Solanum lycocarpum seeds subjected to physiological conditioning treatment (prming). Solanum lycocarpum is native from the Cerrado biome belongs to the family Solanaceae and has high tolerance to environmental stress conditions. Furthermore, this species belongs to the same family as tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and species that are known mainly for its economic importance. The project will be performed at the Department of Plant Production, UNESP, Botucatu-SP. The first step will induce tolerance to heat stress and water using different concentrations of PEG-8000, followed by physiological characterization of the treatments. In the second step, molecular analysis will be carried out by extracting RNA from seeds, and construction of cDNA microarray hybridization (microarrays). In the third step will be the validation of genes associated with tolerance to heat stress and water deficit by real time PCR. The means obtained from physiological and molecular analysis will be compared by the Tukey test at level of 5% probability.