Texas A&M Agrilife reports new insights about the circadian clock, how it regulates high water-use efficiency in some plants, and how others might be improved for the same efficiency.
The scientists in their study, published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution, identify 1,398 transcription factors, proteins that regulate expression of certain genes in pineapple. Of those, nearly half exhibited time-of-day specific or diurnal gene expression patterns, which could be important in uncovering the genetic controls for water use in plants.
A graph from a recent scientific publication by Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists in Dallas shows gene expression patterns at different times of day in two sections of the pineapple plant: one that contributes to photosynthesis (green leaf tip) and one that does not (white leaf base.) “This is an important step in understanding the overall circadian regulation of water-efficient photosynthesis and how that efficiency might be replicated in other plants, namely food crops,” said Dr. Qingyi Yu, AgriLife Research associate professor of plant genomics in Dallas.
