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ARS Home » Plains Area » Lincoln, Nebraska » Wheat, Sorghum and Forage Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #247773

Title: Global Expression in Sorghum Brown Midrib Mutants to Improve Biomass for Biofuels

Author
item Sattler, Scott
item KIM, RYAN - National Center For Genome Resources
item MUDGE, JOANN - National Center For Genome Resources
item FARMER, ANDREW - National Center For Genome Resources
item Funnell-Harris, Deanna
item Pedersen, Jeffrey

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/2/2009
Publication Date: 1/9/2010
Citation: Sattler, S.E., Kim, R.W., Mudge, J., Farmer, A.D., Funnell-Harris, D.L., Pedersen, J.F. 2010. Global Expression in Sorghum Brown Midrib Mutants to Improve Biomass for Biofuels. Meeting Abstract. Plant & Animal Genome Conference XVIII, San Diego, CA Jan. 9-14, 2010.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Brown midrib (bmr) mutants are being investigated for their ability to increase the conversion efficiency of sorghum biomass for lignocellulosic bioenergy. Brown midrib 6 and 12 (bmr6 and 12) are impaired the last two steps of monolignol biosynthesis resulting in reduced lignin content and altered lignin composition. Bmr6 and Bmr12 encode a cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase (CAD) and a caffeic acid-O-methyltransferase (COMT), respectively. To comprehensively characterize the effects of bmr6 and bmr12 have on sorghum gene expression, the Illumina platform was used to sequence nearly 200 million reads representing reverse-transcribed mRNAs from bmr and wild-type stalks. Expression profiles were generated from wild-type and near-isogenic lines containing bmr6, bmr12 or both bmr mutants in three different sorghum varieties. A database of SNPs in expressed transcripts between the three sorghum varieties profiled Atlas, R Tx430 and Wheatland compared to JGI sequenced reference genome R Tx623 was generated. Differential expressed genes were identified in bmr mutants relative to wild-type, which may connect specific gene products functions in cell wall formation, lignification or bioenergy availability. Roughly triple the number of genes were differentially expressed in bmr6 stalks relative to wild-type as compared to bmr12 relative to wild-type. Together these data demonstrate that bmr6 and bmr12 each had distinct impacts upon gene expression, which may have specific plant physiological implications.