Transcriptome analyses of desiccation-tolerant extremophytes to uncover targets of crop yield improvement

• Grant number: 22/09094-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2023
• End date: February 01, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biochemistry - Molecular Biology
• Principal Investigator: Helaine Carrer
• Grantee: Pedro Boscariol Ferreira
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/15249-9 - Validation of reference genes and differential gene expression by RT-qPCR in extremophile plants subjected to drought stress, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

The frequency and intensity of extreme climate events have been increasing over the last few years. The impacts of these events in agriculture also have a trend to become more severe, and technical and management adaptations are not sufficient to keep current crop yields. Overall, high-yield crops are rarely tolerant to biotic and abiotic stresses, which increases the challenges accompanied by these climate events. However, a few wild species escape the trade-off between productivity and defense. In this select group, some plants fit the definition of extremophytes and can be found in habitats such as maritime Antarctica and the Atacama desert in Chile, and others. Desiccation tolerance experiments confirm that the extremophytes Prosopis tamarugo, Colobanthus quitensis, and Deschampsia antarctica don't show significant drops in photosynthetic activity during water restriction. Contrastingly, their congeneric species - Prosopis alba, Colobanthus apetalus, and Deschampsia cespitosa - show the expected trade-off. Thus, this proposal has the goal of comparing transcriptional responses of the desiccation-tolerant species with those of their congeners, in search of shared and unique tolerance mechanisms. To accomplish this goal, ab initio transcriptome assemblies are to be performed, annotated, and used to compare gene co-expression networks. In these comparisons, we expect to find genes or biological processes as targets for genetic manipulation which could improve stress tolerance in crop plants. As a final goal, one or more candidate genes are be used to improve dessication tolerance at least in one model or crop plant.