Project description:Dioscorea tuber undergoes multiple morphological and bio-chemical changes during its 9 month growth period. A stage specific gel free analysis was done to understand the proteomic changes associated with tuber development and assign markers. On the basis of morphological traits the tuber life cycle was divided into four developmental stages namely; root initiation (S1), vegetative growth (S2), new tuber initiation (S3) and tuber maturation (S4) which was validated by principal component analysis (PCA). The first most comprehensive data set was generated by using the pooled genome information from Dioscorea + Solanum + Viridateplantae as reference set identifying 78.2% of the total 3,681 proteins. The over-representation analysis of proteins using PANTHER and KEGG MAPPER revealed both expected and novel biological processes relevant to each developmental stage. A high abundance of the enzymes of ascorbate-glutathione cycle, carbohydrate metabolism, Glycolysis, TCA cycle was detected during tuber degradation and formation. The Glycolytic and starch biosynthesis pathway were re-constructed using the information derived from the proteome data. Novel transcription factors (14) associated with oxidative stress tolerance were identified in D.alata proteome. In conclusion, the data set comprehensively describes the proteome of Dioscorea tuber and provided growth specific markers (APx, MDHAR, invertase for degradation and sucrose synthase for formation) that would pave the way to a systematic study of the tuber. The study provides information that may influence the direction of research for improving the productivity of this under-utilized crop.
Project description:Potato (Solanum tuberosum L) is a natural host of Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) which can cause characteristic symptoms on developing plants including stunting phenotype and distortion of leaves and tubers. PSTVd is the type species of the family Pospiviroidae, it can replicate in the nucleus and the viroid RNA moves systemically in infected plants. Its KF440-2 strain can cause severe symptoms in potato. It is not well understood how the viroid can affect host genes for successful invasion and which genes show altered expression levels upon infection. In this study, we used a high-scale method to identify differentially expressed genes in potato. We have identified defence, stress and sugar metabolism related genes having altered expression levels upon infection. Additionally, hormone pathways connected genes showed up- or down-regulation. Our primary focus is on the identification of genes which can affect tuber formation as the viroid infection can strongly influence tuber development, especially tuber shape is affected. DWARF1/DIMINUTO, Gibberellin 7-oxidase and BEL5 protein were identified and validated which showed differential expression in viroid infected tissues suggesting that gibberellin and brassinosteroid pathways have a possible role in tuber development upon PSTVd infection.
Project description:The consequences on tuber transcriptome of a short heat period during tuber development was investigated in this study with special regard to the development of secondary tuber growth. Plants were grown for 47 days in the greenhouse under ambient conditions (21°C/ 19°C, 16h light, 8h dark) before application of mild heat stress temperatures (29°C/27°C) to one group of plants for 7 days and a stress release period on control temperature for 2 more weeks until harvest. Leaves were sampled before the heat period, at the end of the heat period and at harvest, two weeks after stress release. Tuber samples were taken at harvest. Tubers grown at normal temperatures and exhibiting a normal growth phenotype were used as control. Tubers subjected to the heat treatment and exhibiting a second-growth phenotype (chain tubers) were grouped into primary (attached to stolon from plant) and secondary tubers (attached to stolon from primary tuber).