Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: The genus Brassica contains a wide range of diploid and amphipolyploid species including some of the economically high valuablevegetables and oilseed crops used worldwide. The major industrial and food crops in Brassica are the closest relatives to the model plantArabidopsis thaliana, and hence are major beneficiaries from the vast data of genomics and molecular genetics available in the database ofArabidopsis thaliana. Extensive genetic and molecular analyses have been undertaken for the six cultivated Brassica species. The fourclosely related crop species B. rapa (AA, 2n=20), B. juncea (AABB, 2n=36), B. napus (AACC, 2n=38), and B. carinata (BBCC, 2n=34) provide about 12% of the worldwide edible oil supply. The other two species B. nigra (BB, 2n=16) and B. oleracea (CC, 2n=18) provide many vegetables for healthy human diet having a valuable source of dietary fiber, vitamin C and other anticancer compounds. The comparative mapping between Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica crop species, coupled with the base knowledge of mutation based functional analysis in Arabidopsis thaliana and QTL mapping in crop Brassicas, could greatly contribute towards a better understanding of the genetic architecture for the conserved as well as the evolved traits of agronomic value in the Brassicaceae. Brassica nigra has the second smallest genome size (~ 632 Mbp) among the six cultivated species of Brassica. Brassica species are well known as metal accumulators and some of them are being used for phytoremediation in contaminated soils. Approximately 25% of the documented metal hyper accumulating species are, like A. thaliana, members of the Brassicaceae. The super metal accumulating capacity of Arabidopsis halleri and Noccaeacaerulescens (previously Thlaspi caerulescens) have been well documented. Because of their slow growth and low biomass, other fastgrowing and high biomass brassica crop plants, for example Brassica juncea and Brassica nigra have been evaluated for their ability tohyper accumulate metals from contaminated soils.The Diyabeker ecotype of B. nigra collected from southeastern part of Turkey was found to be hyperaccumulator of Cu. We carried outthe comparative transcriptome analysis in order to find out the expression level of metal induced genes and transcriptome changes both inlow and high Cu treated plants. Microarray analysis showed that some of the genes were highly expressed (several hundred fold) with Cutreated plants compared to control. Our microarray data using Affymetrix GeneChip Arabidopsis Genome Array (ATH1-121501 Genechip) indicate that possibly several genes including the genes in glutathione pathway, metal ATPase and ABC transporters are involved in metal tolerances in this ecotype. In this communication the use of molecular tools and the exploitation of Arabidopsis knowledge will be presented in detail
Authors: Abdul Razaque Memon, Emina Zahirovic
Institution: International University of Sarajevo
Language: English
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2185546215