Study of the transcriptome associated with re-induction of desiccation tolerance and water deficit in germinated seeds of soybean (Glicine max)

Abstract

The re-induction of desiccation tolerance in germinated seeds is a strategy that allows us to study the mechanism associated with desiccation tolerance in seeds. Furthermore, this technique allows the identification of genes associated with drought during germination and seedling establishment. Drought is the main cause of the decline in world production of soybeans and responsible for annual fluctuations in Brazilian production. The seed germination and seedling establishment in the field is a period of the life cycle of the plant very sensitive to environmental conditions. However, knowledge of the molecular mechanisms associated with tolerance to desiccation and water stress during germination and seedling establishment of soybean is scarce. Thus, this project has the objective of re-induce tolerance to desiccation, identify and study the expression of genes associated with the re-induction of desiccation tolerance and water deficit in germinated seeds of soybean. The project will be performed at the FCA / UNESP-Botucatu in collaboration with the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary (UNESP- Jaboticabal) and performed in three steps. In the first step germinated seeds of soybean will be re-induced to tolerate desiccation tolerance by incubation of the germinated seeds in different concentrations Polyethylene Glycol (PEG-8000) solutions and characterized physiologically. In the second step will be carried out molecular analysis with the RNA extraction of primary roots and sequencing of the RNAs will be performed by the Illumina platform (HiScan) located at the Department of Technology, from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary (UNESP- Jaboticabal). In the third step will be performed the bioinformatics analysis of the transcripts obtained and selection of key genes associated with the re-induction of desiccation tolerance and with drought stress in germinated seeds, followed by validation of these genes by real time PCR. It is expected that this study will identity one or more genes associated with desiccation tolerance in soybean seeds and, possible, with drought stress during germination. The results will be submitted to analysis of variance and the averages of the physiological and molecular studies will be compared by average tests at 5% probability. (AU)