Dataset Information

Overexpression of Arabidopsis FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene improves floral development in cassava (Manihot esculenta, Crantz).

ABSTRACT: Cassava is a tropical storage-root crop that serves as a worldwide source of staple food for over 800 million people. Flowering is one of the most important breeding challenges in cassava because in most lines flowering is late and non-synchronized, and flower production is sparse. The FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene is pivotal for floral induction in all examined angiosperms. The objective of the current work was to determine the potential roles of the FT signaling system in cassava. The Arabidopsis thaliana FT gene (atFT) was transformed into the cassava cultivar 60444 through Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and was found to be overexpressed constitutively. FT overexpression hastened flower initiation and associated fork-type branching, indicating that cassava has the necessary signaling factors to interact with and respond to the atFT gene product. In addition, overexpression stimulated lateral branching, increased the prolificacy of flower production and extended the longevity of flower development. While FT homologs in some plant species stimulate development of vegetative storage organs, atFT inhibited storage-root development and decreased root harvest index in cassava. These findings collectively contribute to our understanding of flower development in cassava and have the potential for applications in breeding.

SUBMITTER: Adeyemo OS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5533431 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Overexpression of Arabidopsis FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene improves floral development in cassava (Manihot esculenta, Crantz).

Adeyemo O Sarah OS Chavarriaga Paul P Tohme Joe J Fregene Martin M Davis Seth J SJ Setter Tim L TL

PloS one 20170728 7

Cassava is a tropical storage-root crop that serves as a worldwide source of staple food for over 800 million people. Flowering is one of the most important breeding challenges in cassava because in most lines flowering is late and non-synchronized, and flower production is sparse. The FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene is pivotal for floral induction in all examined angiosperms. The objective of the current work was to determine the potential roles of the FT signaling system in cassava. The Arabidopsi ...[more]

PMID: 28753668

Similar Datasets

Project description:External application of acetic acid has been recently reported to enhance the survival to drought in plants such as Arabidopsis, rapeseed, maize, rice and wheat, but the effects of acetic acid application on increased drought tolerance in woody plants such as a tropical crop “cassava” remain elusive. A molecular understanding of acetic acid-induced drought avoidance in cassava will contribute to the development of technology that can be used to enhance drought tolerance without resorting to transgenic technology or advancements in cassava cultivation. In the present study, morphological, physiological and molecular responses to drought were analyzed in cassava after the treatment with acetic acid. Results indicated that the acetic acid-treated cassava plants had a higher level of drought avoidance than water-treated, control plants. Specifically, higher leaf relative water content, and chlorophyll and carotenoid levels were observed as soils dried out during the drought treatment. Leaf temperatures in acetic acid-treated cassava plants were higher relative to leaves on plants pretreated with water and the increase of ABA content was observed in leaves of acetic acid-treated plants, suggesting that stomatal conductance and the transpiration rate in leaves of acetic acid-treated plants decreased to maintain relative water contents and avoid drought. Transcriptome analysis revealed that the acetic acid treatment increased the expression of ABA signaling-related genes, such as OPEN STOMATA 1　(OST1) and protein phosphatase 2C; as well as drought response and tolerance-related genes, such as outer membrane tryptophan-rich sensory protein (TSPO), and heat shock proteins. Collectively, the external application of acetic acid enhances drought avoidance in cassava through the upregulation of ABA signaling pathway genes and several stress response- and tolerance-related genes. These data support the idea that adjustments of the acetic acid application to plants is useful to enhance drought tolerance in order to minimize the growth inhibition in the agricultural field.

Project description:The external application of acetic acid has recently been reported to enhance survival of drought in plants such as Arabidopsis, rapeseed, maize, rice, and wheat, but the effects of acetic acid application on increased drought tolerance in woody plants such as a tropical crop "cassava" remain elusive. A molecular understanding of acetic acid-induced drought avoidance in cassava will contribute to the development of technology that can be used to enhance drought tolerance, without resorting to transgenic technology or advancements in cassava cultivation. In the present study, morphological, physiological, and molecular responses to drought were analyzed in cassava after treatment with acetic acid. Results indicated that the acetic acid-treated cassava plants had a higher level of drought avoidance than water-treated, control plants. Specifically, higher leaf relative water content, and chlorophyll and carotenoid levels were observed as soils dried out during the drought treatment. Leaf temperatures in acetic acid-treated cassava plants were higher relative to leaves on plants pretreated with water and an increase of ABA content was observed in leaves of acetic acid-treated plants, suggesting that stomatal conductance and the transpiration rate in leaves of acetic acid-treated plants decreased to maintain relative water contents and to avoid drought. Transcriptome analysis revealed that acetic acid treatment increased the expression of ABA signaling-related genes, such as OPEN STOMATA 1 (OST1) and protein phosphatase 2C; as well as the drought response and tolerance-related genes, such as the outer membrane tryptophan-rich sensory protein (TSPO), and the heat shock proteins. Collectively, the external application of acetic acid enhances drought avoidance in cassava through the upregulation of ABA signaling pathway genes and several stress responses- and tolerance-related genes. These data support the idea that adjustments of the acetic acid application to plants is useful to enhance drought tolerance, to minimize the growth inhibition in the agricultural field.

Project description:BackgroundProteomics is increasingly becoming an important tool for the study of many different aspects of plant functions, such as investigating the molecular processes underlying in plant physiology, development, differentiation and their interaction with the environments. To investigate the cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) proteome, we extracted proteins from somatic embryos, plantlets and tuberous roots of cultivar SC8 and separated them by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE).ResultsAnalysis by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionisation-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) yielded a total of 383 proteins including isoforms, classified into 14 functional groups. The majority of these were carbohydrate and energy metabolism associated proteins (27.2%), followed by those involved in protein biosynthesis (14.4%). Subsequent analysis has revealed that 54, 59, 74 and 102 identified proteins are unique to the somatic embryos, shoots, adventitious roots and tuberous roots, respectively. Some of these proteins may serve as signatures for the physiological and developmental stages of somatic embryos, shoots, adventitious roots and tuberous root. Western blotting results have shown high expression levels of Rubisco in shoots and its absence in the somatic embryos. In addition, high-level expression of alpha-tubulin was found in tuberous roots, and a low-level one in somatic embryos. This extensive study effectively provides a huge data set of dynamic protein-related information to better understand the molecular basis underlying cassava growth, development, and physiological functions.ConclusionThis work paves the way towards a comprehensive, system-wide analysis of the cassava. Integration with transcriptomics, metabolomics and other large scale "-omics" data with systems biology approaches can open new avenues towards engineering cassava to enhance yields, improve nutritional value and overcome the problem of post-harvest physiological deterioration.

Project description:BACKGROUND: Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz), a starchy root crop grown in tropical and subtropical climates, is the sixth most important crop in the world after wheat, rice, maize, potato and barley. The repertoire of simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers for cassava is limited and warrants a need for a larger number of polymorphic SSRs for germplasm characterization and breeding applications. RESULTS: A total of 846 putative microsatellites were identified in silico from an 8,577 cassava unigene set with an average density of one SSR every 7 kb. One hundred and ninety-two candidate SSRs were screened for polymorphism among a panel of cassava cultivars from Africa, Latin America and Asia, four wild Manihot species as well as two other important taxa in the Euphorbiaceae, leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula) and castor bean (Ricinus communis). Of 168 markers with clean amplification products, 124 (73.8%) displayed polymorphism based on high resolution agarose gels. Of 85 EST-SSR markers screened, 80 (94.1%) amplified alleles from one or more wild species (M epruinosa, M glaziovii, M brachyandra, M tripartita) whereas 13 (15.3%) amplified alleles from castor bean and 9 (10.6%) amplified alleles from leafy spurge; hence nearly all markers were transferable to wild relatives of M esculenta while only a fraction was transferable to the more distantly related taxa. In a subset of 20 EST-SSRs assessed by fluorescence-based genotyping the number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 10 with an average of 4.55 per locus. These markers had a polymorphism information content (PIC) from 0.19 to 0.75 with an average value of 0.55 and showed genetic relationships consistent with existing information on these genotypes. CONCLUSION: A set of 124 new, unique polymorphic EST-SSRs was developed and characterized which extends the repertoire of SSR markers for cultivated cassava and its wild relatives. The markers show high PIC values and therefore will be useful for cultivar identification, taxonomic studies, and genetic mapping. The study further shows that mining ESTs is a highly efficient strategy for polymorphism detection within the cultivated cassava gene pool.

Dataset Information

Overexpression of Arabidopsis FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene improves floral development in cassava (Manihot esculenta, Crantz).

Publications

Overexpression of Arabidopsis FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene improves floral development in cassava (Manihot esculenta, Crantz).

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets