Project Number: 3625-21000-057-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Oct 01, 2010
End Date: Dec 31, 2013

Objective:
Objective 1: Apply functional genomics tools and resources available to barley, rice, and the model dicot Arabidopsis thaliana, to accelerate comparative analysis of cereal disease defense pathways and associate newly discovered genes with biological function. Objective 2: Characterize diversity of global gene expression in cereal crops as a baseline to determine effects of transgene insertion and assess risk of developing improved crop products by bioengineering or marker-assisted breeding approaches.

Approach:
Objective 1: Utilize allelic variability inherent to barley Mla, Rar1, and Rom1 as a switch to discover new pathways involved in both Rar1-dependent and Rar1-independent plant disease resistance. High-throughput barley dsRNAi and Arabidopsis T-DNA reverse genetic systems will be used to functionally validate candidate genes in resistance pathways of both monocot and dicot plants. Objective 2: Determine the global transcript profiles of a diverse set of barley germplasm and specific sets of transgenic lines and their progenitors. Integrative computational approaches will be used to establish whether or not differences in gene expression can be used as a predictor for genetic anomalies associated with transgenic crops.