Identification of poplar abscisic acid-related genes during wood formation under drought

Duration of the project: 2014 - 2017

Contact: Dade Yu, Email: dyu(at)gwdg.de

Poplar is a fast growing species with small genome (comparing to other woody plants) and easy to propagate and construct transgenic lines. It is taken to be the model research system for woody plants. As wood is one of the most important resources in the world, it is essential to understand the process of wood formation, referring to the secondary xylem development, in trees. Under drought, the growth rate is decreased and the activity of cambium is reduced, leading to structural differences in wood. It is important to understand how wood formation adapts to a water-limited environment and to identify key factors regulating wood formation processes to develop more drought-tolerated germplasms.
Abscisic acid (ABA) is a well-known phytohormone participating in adaption of plants to abiotic stress. Under drought, an increasing ABA accumulation in a plant leads to stomatal closure and a reduction in CO2 assimilation. In the core ABA signaling pathway, the receptors and/or co-receptors of ABA may also function in regulating xylem development under drought stress. So far, the effect of ABA in wood formation is not clear, as previous studies focused mainly on leaves and roots. Therefore, this PhD project investigates whether changes in ABA can influence wood formation and how this ties into the performance of poplars under drought and contributes to the main goals of WATBIO (Development of improved perennial non-food biomass and bioproduct crops for water stressed environments, www.watbio.eu).


proj_poplar_text2
Cross section of Populus × canescens (magification: 400x; dx: developing xylem, x: xylem, v: vessel, f: fiber, r: ray).

Posters
Yu D, Paul S, Wildhagen H, Janz D, Bogeat-Triboulot M, Taylor G, Polle A (2015) Hormonal and molecular basis of growth and wood formation in Populus under drought stress. Perennial Biomass Crops for a Resource Constrained World, Stuttgart-Hohenheim, Germany (7 -10 Sep 2015)

Presentations
Yu D, Wildhagen H, Polle A (2015) Identification of PP2C genes of poplar and their response to drought. Forstbotanisches Seminar, Göttingen, Germany (22 June 2015)

This project is funded by a PhD scholarship to D.Y awarded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) and is supported by the WATBIO (Development of improved perennial non-food biomass and bioproduct crops for water-stressed environments), which is a collaborative research project funded from the European Union's Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No 311929.