Plant & Animal Genomes XIV Conference

January 14-18, 2006
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Expression Profile Of Signal Transduction-Related Genes In Sugarcane Plants Submitted To Phytohormones And Biotic And Abiotic Stresses

Flavia R Rocha¹ , Flavia S Papini-Terzi¹ , Milton Y Nishiyama-Jr¹ , Ricardo ZN Vencio¹ , Renato Vicentini² , Vicente E Rosa-Jr² , Eugenio C Ulian⁵ , Carla Barsalobres³ , Fabiano Vinagre⁴ , Raul S Almeida⁵ , Antonio VO Figueira⁵ , Adriana S Hemerly⁴ , Marcio C Silva-Filho³ , Marcelo Menossi² , Glaucia M Souza¹

¹  Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 05508-900, Brazil

²  CBMEG, Universidade de Campinas, Campinas, 13083-970, Brazil

³  ESALQ, Universidade de São Paulo, Piracicaba, 13400-970, Brazil

⁴  ICB, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 21941-590, Brazil

⁵  Center of Cane Technology, Piracicaba, 13400-970, São Paulo

The cultivated sweet cane, is a hybrid of Saccharum officinarum and Saccharum spontaneum where a gene can be represented by 10-14 copies. The unraveling of gene functions in such a complex organism is a formidable task and a necessary one if we are to understand this grass’ features. To expedite sugarcane genome research the SUCEST Project sequenced 238 thousand ESTs. Sugarcane’s harvested biomass makes it the world's largest crop but despite its economical importance very few studies describe the molecular signaling responses to the environment and the role of phytohormones in this process.The SUCEST-FUN project aims to associate function to sugarcane’s genes and to identify putative targets for variety improvement (http://sucest-fun.org). In this work we describe genes responsive to phytohormones, endophytic bacteria and insect interaction as well as phosphate defficiency, that may have a role in the control of metabolic, developmental and defensive processes in plants. cDNA microarrays were used to profile plantlets submitted to methyljasmonate (MeJA) and abscisic acid (ABA) treatments. Sugarcane plantlets were sprayed with a 100 μM MeJA or ABA solution and leaves were collected 0h, 1h, 6h and 12h after treatment. Plants were also submitted to Gluconacetobacter and Herbaspirillum infection, Diatraea saccharalis and absence of phosphate. The experiments were conducted with biological replicates and expression profiles clustered by SOM. Differentially expressed genes were selected for their strikingly altered pattern. Expression data was validated by real-time PCR. The data presented can be useful in assigning function for the sugarcane genes and reveal potential targets for genetic improvement of sugarcane varieties (This work was supported by FAPESP, CTC and Centralcool).