Identifying tropical maize genetic variability for adaptation to drought stress

• Grant number: 22/09879-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: September 01, 2022
• End date: August 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Genetics - Plant Genetics
• Principal Investigator: Juliana Erika de Carvalho Teixeira Yassitepe
• Grantee: Juliana Erika de Carvalho Teixeira Yassitepe
• Host Investigator: Randall Wisser
• Host Institution: Embrapa Agricultura Digital. Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (EMBRAPA). Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento (Brasil). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Company: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Centro de Biologia Molecular e Engenharia Genética (CBMEG)
• Institution abroad: Laboratoire d'Ecophysiologie des Plantes sous Stress Environnementaux (LEPSE), France
• Associated research grant: 16/23218-0 - The Genomics for Climate Change Research Center, AP.PCPE

Abstract

The development of sustainable agriculture solutions to supply a world-growing population demand integrated efforts from academic institutions all around the world. In Brazil, the Genomics for Climate Change Research Center (GCCRC/Unicamp-Embrapa) is focused on the development of drought and heat stress-tolerant maize varieties using biotech tools including transgenic and genome editing approaches. The Laboratory for Plant Ecophysiology under Environmental Stress (LEPSE), a research unit at INRAE (Montpellier, France), integrates ecophysiology, genetics, and modeling across biological and environmental scales in order to guide the adaptation of crops in current and future climate scenarios. Using complementary strategies, both institutions aim to dissect the genetic mechanisms underlying drought tolerance in maize, generating knowledge and tools for developing stress-tolerant varieties. This proposal will temporally examine a tropical maize diversity panel in a high-throughput phenotyping platform for mining natural genetic variability associated with adaptation to drought stress. Published genomic information and datasets from maize drought stress studies will be combined to improve the chances of identifying natural targets for genome editing. Additionally, we expect to establish a new international collaboration between GCCRC/Unicamp-Embrapa and LEPSE/INRAE, joining expertise in gene discovery, maize transformation, and genome editing with quantitative genetics, ecophysiology, and high-throughput phenotyping to support more climate-resilient agriculture. (AU)