NREL Seminar by John McKay
Friday, October 23, 2009, 11:00 AM
B215, Francis Clark Conference Room, Natural and Environmental Sciences Building

NREL Fall 2009 Seminar Series: “Using Stable Isotopes to Understand Ecological Processes and Global Change”

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This Friday's seminar will be presented by John McKay, Dept. of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management, CSU

Title: "Drought Acclimation and Adaptation: Isotope-omics?"

When: Friday, Oct. 23, 11 a.m. to noon

Where: B215, Francis Clark Conference Room, Natural and Environmental Sciences Building

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Abstract

Drought stress is ubiquitous, is an important selective agent in the evolution of plant growth, development and physiology, and is a major limiting factor to crop productivity. I will report on collaborative efforts to identify genes and physiological and genetic networks associated with naturally-occurring variation in Water Use Efficiency (WUE) in Arabidopsis thaliana by combining screening of stable carbon isotope ratios with genome-wide molecular techniques.

The approach focuses on:

1) whole-genome characterization of constitutive and drought-induced phenotypic gene expression differences among a panel of accessions including ecotypes with extreme high and low WUE

2) genetic mapping of the sensory and regulatory mechanisms underlying differential trait and gene expression by drought using QTL mapping methods

To complement this forward genetics approach, we are examining putative/candidate causal polymorphisms by sequence analysis which will extend understanding of the molecular evolution underlying adaptation to drought.

To increase the applied nature and scope of this research, I am working to extend this functional genomic knowledge from the model plant Arabidopsis to other crop and wild species in the Brassicaceae. Together, these efforts will provide some of the first identifications of which genes and gene networks function in natural variation in drought adaptation and acclimation, including the traits of WUE and carbon isotope ratio.

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Event Contact: Laurie Richards can be reached at (970) 491-1991

Sponsored by the Natural Resource and Ecology Laboratory.