Identification and mapping of pentatricopeptide repeat proteins in modern cultivars of sugarcane

• Grant number: 14/17006-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2014
• End date: October 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Genetics - Plant Genetics
• Principal Investigator: Marie-Anne Van Sluys
• Grantee: Sirlene da Silva Rodrigues
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Pentatricopeptide repeat proteins (PPR) constitute a gene family that has 35 degenerate motifs of amino acids arranged in tandem, being found predominantly in mitochondria and chloroplasts, and associated to the RNA metabolism. In high plants, there is a description of more than 450 members, grouped into two subfamilies: P and PLS. The expansion of PPR gene complement in the plant genome appears to have occurred through gene duplication, although the factors that influence the expansion of this gene family in plants are not completely understood. However, in many species that are important for agriculture, the number of studies is still very limited. The sugarcane belongs to the genus Saccharum (family Poaceae) and is economically important. Commercial varieties of sugarcane, modern cultivars, are hybrids, derived from a cross between S. officinarum and S. spontaneum, they have large and complex polyploid genomes (1C = 5.000 or 5.11 pg) with high chromosome number (2n = 100 - 130), causing difficult to interpret studies of classical genetics and molecular biology. In an effort to increase the number of markers for sugarcane, considering that cytogenetics and comparative genomics are powerful tools for the understanding of the genomic structure; this project aims to isolate, identify and map the pentatricopeptide repeat proteins (PPR) on modern cultivars, which will allow to get better information for the comparison of these sugarcane genomes.