TRANSITION FROM JUVENILE TO ADULT DEVELOPMENT IN BEET

Authors: McGrath, Jon; TREBBI, DANIELE - MICHIGAN ST UNIVERSITY

Submitted to: Annual International Plant & Animal Genome Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/1/2004
Publication Date: 1/25/2005
Citation: McGrath, J.M., Trebbi, D. 2005. Transition from juvenile to adult development in beet [abstract]. Plant & Animal Genome Abstracts. Available: www.intl-pag.org/13/abstracts/PAG13_w341.html.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Sucrose is harvested from adult vegetative sugar beet root tissue, accumulating to >60% of dry matter, generally after 25 weeks of growth in the field. In a breeding context, for instance, it may be beneficial in some situations to select for sucrose content at an earlier date. Germinating seedlings have little sucrose accumulated in their roots, so the kinetics of seedling development and the root's capacity to accumulate sucrose must change over time. Multiple lines of evidence suggest a transition period that occurs between 5 and 7 weeks after emergence, and the molecular basis of this change is of some interest as another example of a developmental shift from juvenile to adult plant growth patterns. Selection for sucrose content at the completion of this transition may be an opportunity to increase breeding efficiency. Characterization of this transition may also reveal targets of breeding opportunity to alter the disease reaction of many fungal root diseases that exhibit a change from early, severe, acute symptoms to late, mild, chronic disease. Our data to date suggest these phenotypic transitions are accompanied by large changes in gene expression, and the identity of some of these genes has been determined using a combination of cDNA-AFLP, subtractive suppressive hybridization, and microarray analyses. It is considered that some of these genes play a direct role in effecting this developmental shift, and indeed represent targets of opportunity for molecular breeding.