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Title: Large Scale Q-PCR Reveals Maize Transcription Factors that are Regulated Under Water Deficit in a Tissue-Specific Manner

Author
item Cho, In-Jeong
item SRIVASTAVA, GYAN PRAKASH - University Of Missouri
item JOSHI, TRUPTI - University Of Missouri
item XU, DONG - University Of Missouri
item HEARNE, LEONARD - University Of Missouri
item SHARP, ROBERT - University Of Missouri
item Oliver, Melvin

Submitted to: American Society of Plant Biologists Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/18/2009
Publication Date: 7/18/2009
Citation: Cho, I., Srivastava, G., Joshi, T., Xu, D., Hearne, L.B., Sharp, R.E., Oliver, M.J. 2009. Large Scale Q-PCR Reveals Maize Transcription Factors that are Regulated Under Water Deficit in a Tissue-Specific Manner. American Society of Plant Biologists Annual Meeting, July 18-22, 2009, Honolulu, Hawaii. 2009 CDROM.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Overcoming the effects of field water deficits to improve yield and ensure food security is a major challenge for crop improvement strategies. Maize is a crop for which the meeting of this challenge is of critical importance given its significance to world food supplies. Part of the challenge is to fully understand the complex maize response to water deficits and for this the primary need is to identify the important gene networks and processes involved that lead to tolerance. With the advent of high throughput technologies and the maize genome, we have addressed this need by targeting the water deficit response of a large number of maize transcription factors (TFs) which we envision as being among the first responders and indicators of processes important for stress tolerance. We have used high throughput qPCR to evaluate the expression of over 1000 putative maize TF transcripts, 384 of which have homology to known-rice TFs, in various tissues following exposure to precise water deficits. We used a vermiculite-based system to tightly control the water status of maize seedlings. Seedlings were exposed to mild (water potential of -0.3 MPa) or moderate (water potential of -1.6 MPa) stress levels for 5 h, 26 h and 44 h. Seedlings were separated into root tip, the rest of the root, and shoot. qPCR profiling reveals that 5 h of exposure to mild stress is sufficient to trigger the expression of some TFs in all tissues. The majority of TFs that respond to the mild stress treatment respond within 26 h. Under moderate stress, the majority of TFs that respond do so within the first 5 h. Individual TF expression profiles under water deficit treatments reveal a mosaic of temporal and tissue specific expression patterns that offer new insights into stress adaptation mechanisms.