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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Ithaca, New York » Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health » Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #414880
Research Project: Championing Improvement of Sorghum and Other Agriculturally Important Species through Data Stewardship and Functional Dissection of Complex Traits

Location: Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research

Title: Sorghum Pan-Transcriptome Reveals Divergent and Constrained Modules for Inflorescence Morphology

Author
item Gladman, Nicholas
item FAHEY, AUDREY - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
item REGULSKI, MICHAEL - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
item Ware, Doreen

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/7/2024
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The identification of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) are useful constructs that can play a role in crop improvement through understanding stress response, development, and plant evolution and domestication in given environmental contexts. Such GRNs are best created through multi-omics approaches in specific tissues in order to strengthen candidate genes and non-coding regulatory loci for functional characterization and ultimate incorporation into breeding programs. Additionally, GRN creation can benefit from assaying across diverse populations of related accessions to identify conserved and divergent modules within species. Combining transcriptomics from 10 Sorghum bicolor accessions and transcription factor binding profiling, along with other genomic metrics, we have constructed sorghum GRNs to understand core and flexible modules that influence inflorescence progression within developing meristems. Through this pan-transcriptomic approach, signaling and metabolic cascades were identified as being differentially regulated at divergent stages of meristematic progression between sorghum germplasm. There can be different transcriptomic regulation between sorghum cultivars despite having broadly similar inflorescence morphologies, strengthening the notion that levels of gene redundancy, dosage, and post-transcriptional activity have significant influence in defining seed head growth and development. Ultimately, these findings could serve to provide future targets for EMS lesion curation or transgenic and genome editing approaches in this globally important crop. This project was funded by the USDA-ARS award number 8062-21000-044-000D.