Maize

Genetic analysis of complex traits: major components of drought tolerance and growth-related traits

Persons in charge: Svenja Rademacher, Eva Bauer, Chris-Carolin Schön
Project duration: 01.07.2011 - 30.06.2015
Project partners: SFB924 "Molecular mechanisms regulating yield and yield stability in plants" (http://www.sfb924.wzw.tum.de)
Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)

Project description:

Drought has a major impact on plant productivity. However, the genetic mechanisms underlying drought tolerance are not well understood probably due to the complexity of the trait involving a large number of genes. The central aim of this project is to identify and characterize target genes that are involved in drought stress response in maize. To this, we use a maize introgression library consisting of 89 introgression lines derived from a drought tolerant dent line as recurrent parent and a flint line as donor parent. The introgression lines are phenotyped regarding drought tolerance and growth-related traits in the field and in a rain-out-shelter. We will target selected genomic regions involved in drought tolerance using next generation sequencing. Target genes will be investigated for natural variation in a panel of diverse maize lines. Moreover, the expression of target genes will be analyzed in detail and their function will be studied. In addition, we will identify maize homologs of drought stress-associated genes from other plant species and analyze the donor and recurrent parent of the introgression library for allelic variation.