Download Drought and UV-radiation stress in barley

Drought and UV-radiation stress in barley - Identification of
associated genes by a comprehensive gene expression analysis
Manuela Diethelm1, Kerstin Hofmann1, Markus Herz1, Andreas Albert2, J. Barbro Winkler2,
Dietrich Ernst3, Urs Schmidhalter3, Carola Wagner4, Fritz Thümmler5, Diego Riano-Pachon6,
Sabrina Kleeßen7,6, Marc Lohse6, Birgit Kersten6 und Günther Schweizer1
1) Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture, Institute for Plant Breeding, Am Gereuth 8, 85354 Freising
2) Helmholtz Zentrum München, Institute of Biochemical Plant Pathology, Dept. of Environmental
Engineering, Ingolstädter Landstr. 1, 85764 Neuherberg
3) Department of Plant Science, Chair of Plant Nutrition, TU München, Emil-Ramann-Str. 2, 85350 Freising;
4) IMGM Laboratories GmbH, Lochhamer Str. 29, 82152 Martinsried
5) vertis Biotechnology AG, Lise-Meitner-Strasse 30, 85354 Freising
6) Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, Department for Bioinformatics, Am Mühlenberg 1,
14424 Potsdam-Golm
Climatic conditions are changing rapidly leading to less predictable rainfall and higher UV-radiation
during growth season and the demand for barley varieties tolerant to abiotic stresses will increase.
Drought tolerance is a genetically complex plant adaption that involves multiple genes and pathways,
so it is essential to find the genes involved to understand their function, before trying to breed for
effective and enduring tolerance. For this purpose three genotypes differing in tolerance to drought
stress and non parasitical leaf spots were subjected to an experiment in the exposition chambers at the
Helmholtz Center in Munich. In this experiment the plants were submitted to drought stress and/or
increased UV radiation. Samples for RNA extraction were taken at ten dates throughout the
experiment. Four of those sampling dates covering the whole drought stress period during grain filling
stage were chosen for a transcriptome analysis with the 44k barley Agilent Microarray and a 454
sequencing assay (Roche). The resulting data from the array analysis is currently being analyzed and
contig construction from 454 sequencing is in progress. The expression data are visualized on barley
signaling pathways using the MapMan tool. First results of genotype specific gene expression at
different sampling dates are shown in Venn diagrams and kinetic clusters. Aim of the project is the
identification of candidate genes related to drought stress resistance.