Transcryptome analysis of Ilex paraguariensis leaves to acute dehydration.

ACEVEDO, RAÚL M.; GONZALEZ, SERGIO A.; RIVAROLA, MAXIMO L.; AVICO, EDGARDO H.; PANIEGO, NORMA B.; RUIZ, OSCAR A.; SANSBERRO, PEDRO A.

Foz do Iguazu

Congreso; International Congress of Plant Molecular Biology, ICPB 2015.; 2015

Weakening in productivity and aging of perennial crops demand the creation of new cultivars with superior features in order to preserve the economic and social sustainability of the growing area. In this context, development of drought tolerant cultivars is the main concern of plant breeders. In order to analyze the transcriptome variation of I. paraguariensis in response to dehydration, we selected a genotype with good physiological and yield performance under drought stress. Triplicate mRNA samples from leaves of plants under two different soil water potential: control (~ 0.04 MPa), and stressed (-2.0 MPa), were sequenced by Illumina HiSeq 1500, generating 210.734.128 paired ends reads (2x100bp). By means of de novo assembling we obtained 143,795 contigs, with N50: 1,962. We are currently performing a structural and functional annotation along with identifying the differentially expressed transcripts to characterize candidate genes involved in plant defense and obtain a wealth of information related to potential molecular markers and genomic resources for the whole community. Therefore, this work will make a valuable contribution to the understanding of variations in gene expression underlying physiological mechanisms of acclimation to drought, and also help spread genomic data of this non-model specie, which are currently scarce.