Cloning and analysis of selected candidate genes in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) plant
Student name: Ms Ankita Raj
Guide: Dr Chaithanya Madhurantakam
Year of completion: 2017
Host Organisation: National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Aashish Ranjan
Abstract: Plants in their natural habitat are exposed to multiple environmental factors. Environmental factors like light, temperature, nutrient, moisture, etc greatly influence their life cycle. Being sessile, they develop intricate mechanism to adopt themselves in the changed environmental conditions. Among various abiotic factors, light is very important factor for plant’s growth. Plants have evolved photoreceptors to perceive ambient change in light conditions. Light signalling pathway is very well known in model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Downstream to photoreceptors, bHLH transcription factors affect the gene expression of various gene involve in plant growth and development. Beyond light signalling, bHLH transcription factors participate in other processes like abiotic stress signalling, leaf senescence, etc. However, the function of bHLH and other transcription factors in regulating environmental responses of crop plants have not been investigated. Two Arabidopsis bHLH homologs, known to be involved in environmental signalling, were identified from the Solanum lycopersicum. The cloning of the two transcription factor was performed with and without tag for establishing the functional significance of the targeted transcription factors in Solanum lycopersicum.
Apart from bHLH transcription factors, Receptor-Like Kinase along with their ligands also known to be involved in various processes like cell-cell communication, cell patterning, organ development, etc. Recently, it has been discovered that they are involve in thermotolerance in Oryza sativa and Solanum lycopersicum. For a comprehensive characterization of Receptor line kinases and their ligands, tissue-specific expression analysis for the kinases and their ligands were performed for different tissues of Solanum lycopersicum. Simultaneously, efforts were also made to generate knock-down/out lines for one of the Receptor like kinases in Solanum lycopersicum.
Key words: bHLH transcription factor, receptor like kinase, photoreceptors, gene expression, ligands.
