The influence of maturation on gene expression during germination and seedling establishment of soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.)

• Grant number: 14/00533-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): June 25, 2014
• Effective date (End): June 24, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Crop Science
• Principal Investigator: Edvaldo Aparecido Amaral da Silva
• Grantee: Rubiana Falopa Rossi
• Supervisor: Olivier Henri Leon Leprince
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agronômicas (FCA). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Institut de Recherche en Horticulture et Semences (IRHS), France
• Associated to the scholarship: 13/04598-8 - The influence of maturation on gene expression during seed germination and seedling establishment in soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.), BP.DR

Abstract

Soybean seeds with lower quality are more likely to occur in tropical conditions, leading to occurrence of reduced stand and low productivity. The production of seeds with high physiological quality is critical to the expansion of soybean in Brazil. However, advances in the quality of seeds are impeded by conflicting evidence about when the various features of physiological quality of soybean seeds are acquired and lost during maturation and is limited by the lack of information about the genes that regulate this phase and the relationship between the same. Thus, the project aims to identify a set of candidate genes that supposedly govern the physiological quality of soybean seed during the acquisition of the ability to germinate and associate them with cytological changes and content of ABA. Advances in genomics in soybean and the development of tools allow free access to bioinformatics which will contribute to find regulatory genes and their interaction controlling the various stages of seed development. The transcriptome will be monitored during germination and seedling establishment and compared with those of dryed mature seeds using a multidisciplinary approach (including physiology, biochemistry and transcriptome analysis). The objective of this phase of the study will be to associate the genes expression with seed quality and provide molecular markers for quality traits. The research project is part of a PhD project (2013/04598-8) and will be performed at the Research Institute on Horticulture and Seeds (RIHS), Angers - France. Bioinformatic analysis of sequenced RNAs (transcriptome study) will be carried out in the search for the best candidate genes related to acquisition of quality during seed development. The data will give support to the writing of the thesis to be completed in Brazil. (AU)