Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | Cross adaptation of Arabidopsis accessions naturalized to growing in heavy winds |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Baskar R, Indian Institute Of Technology (IIT) Madras, Tamil Nadu |
Timeline Start Year : | 2023 |
Timeline End Year : | 2026 |
Contact info : | rbaskar@iitm.ac.in |
Equipments : | Walk in plant growth chamber
Deep freezer -80C |
Details
Executive Summary : | Climate change due to global warming will have a strong impact on wind speeds with the change in its direction, duration, intensity and geographical locations that have not experienced heavy winds may get to experience it. Thus there is a dire need to understand the impact of wind on plants, as it affects yield significantly. Based on the GPS coordinates of different ecotypes/accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana from different latitudes, we will obtain the corresponding ground wind speed data, identify few accessions that would have experienced little, moderate and heavy winds for extended periods of time. Repeated swaying due to heavy winds is a mechanical stress imposed on plants and this leads to high ROS buildup in cells and elevated ROS is known to increase the DNA double strand breaks possibly leading to more recombination. Further, in heavy winds, branching is curtailed significantly and recombination rates are known to be higher in secondary than primary branches. Thus it will be of significant interest to know the meiotic recombination rates (MR) as a function of different wind speeds from primary and secondary branches in different accessions. By reciprocally crossing the identified accessions with a set of detector lines carrying GFP and RFP in a particular chromosome, MR rates will be ascertained. Subsequent to a crossover, the fluorescent markers will segregate that can be visualized in seeds as they are driven by a seed specific promoter. Based on the fraction of green or red alone seeds to the total seed number, MR rates can be estimated. This exercise is to know if the wind effect is stronger in a particular ecotype background /sex/branch. Importantly, we will know if certain accessions naturalized to growing in higher/lower wind speeds correspondingly have higher/lower MR rates also. In a custom built wind tunnel, the plants will separately be subjected to three different wind speeds and the treatment will be for few hours daily until the plants are mature. Heavy winds may blow away seedlings out of soil and thus more recombination may be a strategy to give rise to genetic variants with greater anchorage to withstand the heavy winds. |
Total Budget (INR): | 48,53,196 |
Organizations involved