Genomics

Osmotic stress in grapevine

The identification and characterisation of stress tolerance -conferring genes is a first step for towards understanding the molecular basis of the tolerance mechanism. It is also a necessary prerequisite for the development of novel strategies to improve susceptible eélite varieties which can not be achieved by classical breeding within a reasonable period of time. Drought and salinisation are two well -known environmental threats that are becomeing increasingly important worldwide and, in particular, for Mediterranean agriculture. It is therefore important to identify as many molecular strategies against to combat such those stresses as possible in order to be prepared to use them for to improveing recent agricultural crops. Vitis vinifera varieties differ with respect to their ability to withstand long-term salt- and drought- stress. While robust varieties are not significantly affected significantly by adverse growth conditions, standard eélite cultivars encounter difficulties. Which gene(s) that contributeing to abiotic stress tolerance are missing in sensitive cultivars or do which have altered properties or are not subject to appropriate regulation? In order to identify stress -associated genes we use cDNA cloning techniques, and particularly subtractive cloning strategies to prepare cDNA libraries, which are screened for differentially expressed cDNAs in leaves and roots of stress -tolerant Mediterranean grapevine. Candidate cDNAs have to be verified by correlating the expression level under control and stress conditions using a range of stress-tolerant and stress-susceptible varieties.

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