Study of variability of genes involved in nitrogen fixation in red cloved (Trifolium pratense L.)
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is a process of acquisition of atmospheric nitrogen by organism having enzymes enabling reduction of nitrogen to ammonia. This ability is typical for some bacteria, and several of these bacterial taxa can form symbiosis with plants (= root nodule symbiosis). From this relationship, legume plants, such as red clover (T. pratense L.), acquire fixed nitrogen, and bacteria, situated in root nodules, are supplied by organic compounds in return. Plants enriched by fixed nitrogen can be used as natural fertilizer and hence the development of plant with high BNF has great agronomic potential. Efficacy of BNF is highly variable among genotypes due to the occurrence of polymorphisms in genes associated with interaction between plants and bacteria, nodule formation and nitrogen fixation itself. Here, we asses variability of BNF efficacy among varieties of T. pratense in context with their genomic background, describe genes with significant association with higher BNF efficacy and introduce the planned stages of this study focused on transcriptomic landscape of root nodules. Material consists of more than 1,000 genotypes of 11 varieties of red clover, which was evaluated for their BNF efficacy using acetylene reduction assay (ARA), and selected contrasting genotypes was sequenced for 2 panels including 86 genes involved in BNF. Polymorphisms (SNPs, Indels) were identified in these genes using computational analysis, and their association with high BNF efficacy was assessed via statistical methods. Polymorphisms with higher association were acquired from both gene panels, and they will be used for SNP chip construction for rapid and massive genotyping. Next stage comprises transcriptome research of root nodule using RNA sequencing. Acquired sequencing data will lead to study of differential gene expression between genotypes contrasting in BNF efficacy, this information will be put into context with the results obtained from targeted sequencing and will enable comprehensive view to the BNF variability from genomic point of view on the two levels of gene expression. |
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