Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

Vol 27, Oct Suppl. Issue, 2021; Page No.(183-193)

COMPARATIVE EXPRESSION STUDIES OF THIRTEEN TRANSCRIPTS IN TECTONA GRANDIS L.F. UNDER DIFFERENT IRRIGATION TREATMENT USING QRT-PCR

Nilakshi Borah, Prodeep Kumar Borua and Siddhartha Proteem Saikia

Abstract

In recent climate change phenomenon, drought is the major environmental factor which badly affects the forest leading to its mortality. Tectona grandis L.f. (Teak) is a tropical forest tree species famous for its high durability wood quality. Woody plant with its deep root system withstand drought to some extent. However, seedling establishment is very much needed for genetic improvement and breeding program in this harsh environmental condition. Understanding the plant physiology and molecular mechanism under drought is very helpful for developing high variety genetic stock. Being a major Teak producing country, there are scanty of report on gene expression pattern of teak under drought. Understanding up regulated and down regulated transcripts and their expression under drought will help us to find more details about their expression and exploring more data on it. We report here the change in the expression pattern of 13 Teak transcripts in 25 selected samples of 3 drought tolerant cultivars in different irrigation schedule of 100%, 75%, 50% and 25%. qPCR studies were performed on two chemistries, Taqman and Sybr Green Based. Taqman based studies were performed for the transcript TR19630|c0_g1, TR26753|c0_g1, TR52087|c0_g4, TR26739|c0_g3, TR16494|c0_g4, TR54668|c0_g1, TR41913|c0_g1, 18S rRNA and Sybr Green based studies were performed for the transcripts TR83729|c0_g2, TR20915|c1_g1, TR15761|c0_g1, TR38214|c0_g1, TR41764|c0_g1 TR15734|c0_g2. When the tree is subjected to 25% drought condition, TR19630|c0_g1, TR41764|c0_g1, TR26753|c0_g1, TR16494|c0_g4, TR15734|c0_g2, and TR20915|c1_g1 showed increased expression. The expression of transcripts TR54668|c0_g1, TR26753|c0_g1, TR26739|c0_g3, TR19630|c0_g1 and TR41913|c0_g1 has been significantly high just by inducing 100% irrigation treatment. TR38214|c0_g1 has shown lower expression in all the drought condition. Further bioinformatics bases pathway analysis can clearly elucidate the mechanism by which these transcripts exert their function on teak tree leaves leading to apoptosis.