The water-deficit stress- and red-rot-related genes in sugarcane

• DOI: 10.1007/s10142-009-0144-9
• Publication Date: 2009-10-06T10:09:41Z
• Authors: Vikrant Gupta; Saurabh Raghuvanshi; Ambika Gupta; Navin Saini; Anupama Gaur; M. S. Khan; R. S. Gupta; J. Singh; S. K. Duttamajumder; S. Srivastava; A. Suman; Jitendra P. Khurana; Raman Kapur; Akhilesh K. Tyagi
• Keywords: Expressed Sequence Tags; 0301 basic medicine; 2. Zero hunger; Base Sequence; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; Water; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Genes, Plant; 6. Clean water; Saccharum; Kinetics; 03 medical and health sciences; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Stress, Physiological; Colletotrichum; Cluster Analysis; Plant Diseases

Sugarcane is an important international commodity as a valuable agricultural crop especially in developing countries. Sequencing was carried out to generate >35,000 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from healthy as well as red-rot-infected tissue of Indian subtropical variety of sugarcane. Subsequent clustering with existing sugarcane ESTs in public databases identified 4,087 clusters, including 85 clusters that preferentially express upon Colletotrichum falcatum (red-rot) infection, which were previously unreported. Real-time reverse transcription-PCR profiling of selected EST clusters identified several sugarcane clusters that show differential expression in response to biotic and abiotic stress conditions. Twenty-five stress-related clusters showed >2-fold relative expression during water-deficit stress in sugarcane. Similarly, EST clusters could be identified, which exhibit association with red-rot disease when assessed in red-rot-susceptible and red-rot-resistant varieties of sugarcane. Such EST clusters are good candidates for in-depth analysis to elucidate stress-responsive pathways in sugarcane and facilitate genetic manipulation to tailor this crop for tolerance to various stresses.