Forest transcriptomic analysis for functional marker development and gene discovery

ACUÑA, CINTIA; TORALES, SUSANA; RIVAROLA, MÁXIMO; POMPONIO, MARÍA F.; GONZÁLEZ, SERGIO; LÓPEZ LAUENSTEIN, DIEGO; VILLALBA, PAMELA; VERGA, ANIBAL; FERNANDEZ, PAULA; GARCÍA, MARTÍN; MARCHELLI, PAULA; AZPILICUETA, MARÍA M.; GALLO, LEONARDO; HOPP, ESTEBAN H.; PANIEGO, NORMA; MARCUCCI POLTRI, SUSANA

Mar del Plata, Argentina

Congreso; XV Congreso Latinoamericano de Fisiología Vegetal y la XXX Reunión Argentina de Fisiología Vegetal; 2014

Molecular markers associated to traits involved in forest breeding programs (growth,wood quality stress tolerance, etc) are valuable in applying marker-assisted selection. Genic microsatellites or EST?SSRs of model tree species (e.g Eucalyptus genus) are useful as molecular markers because they represent transcribed genes. However, in non-model organisms or in those species whose genomes have not been completely sequenced, RNAseq is one approach used in functional genomics for gene discovery and molecular marker development.In this work, we report the characterization and development of new functional markers in cultivated Eucalyptus spp. We also present the development and characterization of transcriptomes in native tree species like Nothofagus spp. and Prosopis spp.From E. globulus EST database (NCBI), 24 structural and regulatory candidate genes for wood quality carrying 29 and 12 polymorphic SSRs (microsatellites) were identified. A high cross transferability (92% to 100%) was found in six other Eucalyptus species.In Nothofagus nervosa?s transcriptome, our functionally annotated dataset likely represents half of the N. nervosa gene catalogue that holds 2,517 SSRs and 14 polymorphic SSRs related to stress response.In Prosopis alba RNA-seq allowed the discovery of 37,563 unigenes, thousands of microsatellites and SNPs and the detection of 11 polymorphic SSRs related to abiotic stress and metabolism.