IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE - The information on this site is subject to a disclaimer and a copyright notice.
|
|
|
|
|
Brussels, December 13, 2000
EC-Projects using Arabidopis as model plant
Changing maize grain development to provide lines better adapted to the European agricultural and commercial environment
Co-ordinator
Professor Hugh Dickinson, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, Tel: 44 (0)1865 275800, E-mail: hugh.dickinson@plants.ox.ac.uk.
Abstract
The cereal grain is the most important harvested food product world wide, and maize is a major European grain crop. The grain – the seed of the plant – contains a number of compartments all of which play a part in the germination and early development of the young plant. It is the reserves in these compartments which provide the nutritional value of the grain.
The MAZE programme is using gene technology to alter the size and content of these seed compartments to provide grain of higher yield and greater nutritional value. Further, this research is also intended to increase the standing of European Industry in the rapidly expanding field of plant biotechnology.
The Arabidopsis sequence, used in conjunction with current programmes focused on gene function, is beginning to identify the gene sequences involved in seed development and how they are organised into pathways leading to the formation of the mature seed. Certainly the seeds of Arabidopsis and maize are very different but they are formed in the same way and, very importantly, there is great similarity in sequence between Arabidopsis and maize genes involved in seed formation. It is thus proving possible to “read across” from the Arabidopsis sequence database, to genes with similar function in maize.
A good example of this “cross referencing” is in the study of imprinting, a genetic system, which seems to control seed development in many plants. The effect of imprinting and its mode of operation has been studied in Arabidopsis, and a number of imprinted genes identified. The equivalents or “homologues” of these genes are now being identified in maize – where imprinting has been known for a number of years to directly affect grain size – with the intention of improving seed yield and quality.
While the MAZE programme uses gene technology to provide the tools for European Industry to improve maize grain quality and yield, it is important to emphasize that the research is focused on making relatively minor adjustments to the performance of “endogenous” genes – those already present in the plant. It does not involve the importation of genes from other Kingdoms. Participants in the MAZE programme are the Universities of Hamburg, Cologne, Siena, Oxford, ENS Lyon, IBM Barcelona and Biogemma, a major European seed production company.
Transcription factors controlling plant responses to environmental stress conditions
Co-ordinator:
Dr. Annemarie H. Meijer, Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences, Leiden University, the Netherlands, Tel. 0031 71 52 75 052, E-mail: meijer@rulbim.leidenuniv.nl.
Abstract
In their natural environments, plants can suffer from adverse conditions, such as drought, flooding, salinity and cold. They and can be further challenged by insect feeding or pathogen attack. In agriculture, such physical or biological stresses cause major reductions in the potential productivity of crops.
In the project “TF-STRESS: Transcription factors controlling plant responses to environmental stress conditions” we study specific regulators (transcription factor proteins) which play crucial roles in the adaptation of plants to different stress conditions. Such regulators control the activity of multiple end products that are involved in stress responses and therefore represent attractive targets for applications in molecular breeding. In the project we analyze how these regulators help plants to achieve specificity in their responses to the different types of stress in their environments. For this, specifically stress-adapted non-utilized species as well as important crops are used. The availability of the full or draft genome sequences of the research model plant Arabidopsis and the cereal model plant rice, will make a great contribution to the characterization of the gene families of the regulators and the stress response genes under their control.
We expect the project to deliver strategic knowledge of how the natural defense mechanisms of plants can be utilized for the improvement of stress tolerance in crops. Furthermore, this research can lead to development of markers that can be used to predict and measure the quality of agricultural and horticultural plant species. The partners are from Italy, Spain, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands.
PRESS RELEASES | 13.12.2000