DIVERGENT ROLES FOR AN ANCESTRAL HDZIP-I GENE OF Marchantia polymorpha

ROMANI F; FLORENT SN; BOWMAN JL; MORENO JE

Paraná

Congreso; 54th Annual Meeting of SAIB; 2018

Land plants evolved multiple independent mechanisms to tolerate abioticstress. The number of transcription factors (TFs) increased with plantradiation, but TFs families remained largely stable. Here, we explored the caseof the Class I HOMEODOMAIN LEUCINE-ZIPPER(C1HDZ) genes. These TFs play arole in plant tolerance to abiotic stress in angiosperms, but it is not clear ifthis function is conserved in early divergent plants like Marchantia polymorpha. Here, we present a preliminarycharacterization of a Marchantia mutant (mpc1hdz)lacking a functional C1HDZ. The abiotic stress response of mpc1hdz was similar to the wild type.The abiotic treatments, including drought, NaCl and osmotic stress, inducedsimilar growth inhibition on both genotypes. However, the mutant was impairedin non-conserved phenotypes. We found that mpc1hdzdeveloped gemmae cups and reproductive structures with abnormal morphology, andno detectable oil bodies in gemmae cups. Then, we performed an RNA-seq analysisof mpc1hdz mutant plants. I willdiscuss these results in the context of the eco-physiological consequences forMarchantia and their putative conservation in angiosperm plants.