| Grant number: | 15/10220-3 |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate |
| Start date: | October 09, 2015 |
| End date: | October 08, 2016 |
| Field of knowledge: | Biological Sciences - Biochemistry - Molecular Biology |
| Principal Investigator: | Carlos Takeshi Hotta |
| Grantee: | Luíza Lane de Barros Dantas |
| Supervisor: | John W. S. Brown |
| Host Institution: | Instituto de Química (IQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil |
| Institution abroad: | University of Dundee, Scotland |
| Associated to the scholarship: | 11/08897-4 - Characterization of the sugarcane circadian clock and its impact on the metabolism, BP.DR |
Abstract The main PhD project Characterization of the circadian clock and its impact on sugarcane metabolism aims: I) to understand how the sugarcane circadian clock core oscillator works and all its mechanisms; II) to analyze the circadian clock impact on sugarcane metabolism. In order to achieve this characterization, two sugarcane fields were cultivate for 14 months, the first one sown in the drought season and the second one sown in the rainy season. The sugarcane plants were sampled when were 4 months, 9 months and 12 months old, in different seasons. The tissues sampled for gene expression analysis and global transcriptome profiling came from three different organs: leaf +1 (L1), internodes 1/2 (I1/2), internode 5 (I5). These tissues have distinctive physiological profiles, with L1 being a photossintetically active tissue or a carbohydrate source tissue and the internodes being carbohydrate sink tissues. I1/2 has an intense cellular activity and I5 is considered as the first sugarcane tissue to accumulate sucrose. So far, transcripts with diurnal rhythms in sugarcane were identified through microarrays in 9 months old plants and confirmed by quantitative Real-Time PCR (qPCR). qPCR was also performed in plants with 4 months, to an initial evaluation of the sugarcane circadian clock genes under diurnal conditions. The findings from theses gene expression assays revealed that the circadian clock in sugarcane sink tissues is active and synchronized with the leaf tissue. Preliminary data suggests that photosynthesis products may be responsible for synchronizing the source and sink sugarcane circadian clocks. Moreover, the data analysis suggests the highest proportion of rhythmically expressed transcripts ever found in plants, ranging from 53% in L1, to 31% in I1/2 and 27% in I5. Also, qPCR results for ScLHY gene expression showed a delayed expression for this gene probably associated to shading effects in the field. (AU) | |
| News published in Agência FAPESP Newsletter about the scholarship: | |
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