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Content archived on 2024-05-29

Improving seed quality in cereals by manipulating gene expression and partitioning

Objective

One of the major challenges of the post-genomic era is to ascertain a function to identified genes. The need to develop transient forward genetic tool based on loss-of-function approaches will significantly narrow the gap between gene-to-function. This is even more crucial when functional genomic programmes are undertaken on relevant organisms instead of model species. In plants, despite the recent completion of Arabidopsis thalianagenome sequencing, the knowledge transfer to cultivated crop species such as cereals will not be straightforward. Cereals are less prone to stable transformation and have a more complex genetic background making genetic approaches difficult to achieve. Cereal grains are the most important renewable resource for food, fodder and industrial raw material.

A better understanding of gene functions associated to seed maturation, germination and embryo development will have an immediate impact for both the scientific community and bio-manufacturing companies. Gene discovery programmes have identified a collection of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) whose corresponding genes display various expression patterns specific to different stages of barley grain development and germination. Consequently such genes are potentially associated to developmental and metabolic processes underlying such essential traits like seed quality and malting. However, their in planta functional characterization requires appropriate approaches in order to unambiguously identify their role in these key biological processes. One of the remarkable events is plasmodesmata transition during seed development. This project will exploit a number of unique approaches to elucidate the function of novel genes and their potential role in modulating seed-related functions in order to improve seed quality in cereals. Specifically, this research programme aims at developing plant viral vectors for loss-of-function and gain-of-function screens

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Topic(s)

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Call for proposal

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FP6-2002-MOBILITY-5
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

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EIF - Marie Curie actions-Intra-European Fellowships

Coordinator

SCOTTISH CROP RESEARCH INSTITUTE
EU contribution
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Total cost

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