Studying shade avoidance in plants
It is well known that plants change their growth habits in response to altered light conditions in a phenomenon known as shade avoidance syndrome (SAS). However, SAS has not been well studied in adult plants, and many questions about the genetic and molecular control of this process remain unanswered. The EU-funded SAS-ARABIDOPSIS-GWA project aimed to address this by developing a complex high-throughput imaging and data collection system to study SAS in Arabidopsis thaliana. Coupled with genetic analyses, this would provide new data on the physical and genetic changes in adult plants in response to poor light conditions. Early work focused on establishing the imaging system and data pipeline. This required standardised growth protocols, software to convert 2D images to 3D data points, and storing the data in a database.Nearly 200 plants were grown and characterised using this system. At the same time, genetic data was collected from each plant for a genome-wide association (GWA) study to link physical and genetic traits. Preliminary results showed that genes involved in SAS in young plants played different roles in adult plants. Several new genes that play a role in SAS were identified and will be studied further. The imaging system developed during this project is very precise, lending itself to a wide range of plant physiology research questions. Taken with the other research findings, SAS-ARABIDOPSIS-GWA will have a major impact on our understanding of plant development.
Keywords
Plants, shade avoidance syndrome, adult plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, genetic analyses, light conditions
