American Journal Experts
The act of domestication has resulted in convergence in a suite of phenotypes (e.g. reduced seed shedding, compact plant structure, shorter overall height, and increased seed numbers, sizes and weights) across multiple cereal species. I am most interested in investigating the genetics behind reduction in seed shedding that occurs with changes in the abscission layer region at the flower-pedicel junction. My main research question is “What groups of genes are differentially regulated during seed abscission in the tropical grass Sorghum bicolor?” Only one gene controlling the reduction in seed abscission during domestication has been identified in Sorghum bicolor, an important tropical grass used for food, feed and biofuels. However, many other genes are likely involved in this process and could be useful in future breeding and fine tuning of seed release. I collected portions of panicles at flowering from two replicates of a non-shedding individual (Btx623) as well as two replicates of control tissue (flag leaf). Another dataset of the same tissues and stages from a shedding individual is planned. My eventual goal is to compare abscission pathways across domesticated grasses and determine how much convergence occurs at the phenotypic and genetic levels.
Sorghum plants (Btx623 background) were grown in a glasshouse between March and May 2014. At panicle emergence, two biological replicates of flag leaf tissue and two biological replicates of emerging panicle tissue were harvested and used for RNA extraction. Btx623 is a non-shattering Sorghum accession, thus in the future we would like to add additional samples from accessions with varying degrees of seed shattering. This dataset will be useful for future comparisons of 1) shattering individuals at these stages and 2) additional flowering developmental time points in a variety of accessions.
This Sorghum RNA-Seq dataset is designed to serve as a baseline for gene expression in non-shattering individuals at the panicle emergence stage.
| Sample | Download (Files are > 2Gb) |
|---|---|
| Flag leaf tissue rep 1 | RNA21_R1, RNA21_R2 |
| Flag leaf tissue rep 2 | RNA22_R1, RNA22_R2 |
| Emerging Panicle tissue rep 1 | RNA23_R1, RNA23_R2 |
| Emerging Panicle tissue rep 2 | RNA24_R1, RNA24_R2 |
How can we tease out the genes involved in the various developmental changes going on during flower/seed development?
What types of genes are activated and down regulated in order for a plant to shatter seeds?
Principles of Biology I is an introductory general biology course, including a weekly lab, with about 48 students per section. Students enrolled in this course come from all majors as this is a core course to graduate. Students will spend one week in lecture learning about gene expression, RNA structure and function, and what RNA-Seq is and why scientists use it.
Genetics is an introductory genetics course, including a weekly lab, taught as a single section of 48 students. Students are generally Biology majors. Students will spend two weeks in lecture learning about gene expression, RNA structure and function, and various RNA technologies (Microarray and RNA-Seq approaches) and will spend one lab period working through the Green-line RNA-Seq data pipeline as part of a lab unit on Bioinformatics.
