The plasticity of development in response to environmental stress: What is the role of the Snakin/ GASA gene family?

NAHIRÑAK, V; DAUZAT, M; ROLLAND, G; BÉDIÉE, A; ROSELLO, A; BALSERA, C; BARRIOS-BARÓN, P; GONZALEZ DE URRETA, M; ALMASIA, NI; VILE, D; GRANIER, C; VAZQUEZ- ROVERE, C

Talca

Congreso; 1º Latin American Conference on Plant Phenotyping and Phenomics for Plant Breeding; 2015

Universidad de Talca

The National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) and Agropolis International signed a partnership agreement in March 2012 aiming at the setting up of a Virtual Laboratories of INTA in Europe based in Montpellier (LABINTEX). The presence of LABINTEX in France is strategic since it positions Argentinian research at the forefront of knowledge in cooperation with the European scientific community. The establishment of LABINTEX aims to: conduct advanced research to create innovations; identify and develop scientific cooperation through innovation networks by linking agencies in Argentina, France and other countries; and increase the competitiveness and sustainability of Argentina?s agricultural production. Priority thematic areas of cooperation are: Conservation and sustainable management of environmental technologies; Organizational innovation; Agrifood and agroindustrial technologies; and Emerging technologies. In this last area we were integrated in the Laboratory of Ecophysiology of Plants under Environmental Stress (LEPSE) of INRA-SupAgro, Montpellier. This research group, ranked among the top 5% research group in ecophysiology worldwide in 2014 by a panel of experts, is developing high throughput phenotyping platforms for more than 15 years. These platforms (embarking 500 to 1500 plants simultaneously) aim to analyze and model genetic variability of plant responses to environmental stresses and climate change (mainly drought and elevated temperature). They can host large collections of genotypes, evaluate their tolerance and obtain relevant parameters that are injected into predictive models allowing the selection and the breeding of future, tolerant and more efficient varieties. The platforms are gathered into "Montpellier Plant Phenotyping Platforms? (M3P) that is a full member of the ?Investment for the future? initiative PHENOME. The platforms host ~ 50% of external access in the frame of national and international projects on a variety of species (maize, wheat, grapevine, apple tree, sorghum, Arabidopsis, tomato).The research project is developing in the SPIC group (environmental Stress and Processes Involved in the Control of growth) of LEPSE led by C. Granier. The aim of the project is to generate knowledge about the adaptability of plants to marginal agricultural areas in order to strengthen crop resistance to unfavorable environmental conditions. Climate change is altering the availability of resources and the conditions that are crucial to plant performance. One way plants will respond to these changes is through environmentally induced shifts in their phenotype: the phenotypic plasticity. Understanding the mechanisms involved phenotypic plasticity can generate significant contributions to increase crop production and we decided to explore the possible involvement of Snakin/GASA family genes in this response. Snakin/GASA proteins are widely distributed among plant species and all of them maintain 12 cysteines of the C-terminus in highly conserved positions of the aminoacid sequences. Despite their common features, their functions are not completely elucidated and little is known about their mode of action. They have been involved in different aspects of plant growth and development, however, the exact role played by these proteins is still intriguing (Nahirñak et al., 2012). In this context, we decided to determine the involvement of different GASA genes of Arabidopsis thaliana in plant development under optimal and sub-optimal environmentalconditions. Homozygotes GASA mutant lines were obtained, molecularly characterized, selected and phenotypically characterized in different environmental conditions using the automated platform PHENOPSIS (Granier et al., 2006). All data are stored in PHENOPSIS database (Fabre et al., 2011) and are being analyzed. Also, overexpressing lines are being obtained, molecularly characterized and new phenotyping experiments will be performed in other stress conditions (severe water deficit, high temperature and/or combined stresses) in order to identify and understand the molecular mechanisms and developmental processes in which GASA genes are involved.