March 6, 2014
Speaker to talk about genomics of seed development, metabolism
Raju Datla, senior research officer at the Plant Biotechnology Institute, National Research Council of Canada, Saskatoon, Canada, will present "Genomics of Seed Development and Metabolism: Challenges and Opportunities in Crop Plants" at 3:45 p.m. March 6 in 4013 Throckmorton Hall.
The lecture abstract: Seed development represents an important phase in the life cycle of flowering plants including the majority of the crop species. During this phase, developmental and metabolic programs are coordinated to produce the seeds that contain the germline information and storage reserves. From a crop perspective, the qualitative and quantitative aspects of metabolites and especially the storage products deposited in the seed defines the value of the seed. Despite progress in fundamental understanding of seed development, the global genetic and metabolic programs involved in the making of the seed and their implications to genetic improvement of seed is yet to be fully exploited in crop plants. The major goal of our study is to develop comprehensive systems level insights into molecular and biochemical programs associated with gene expression, protein and metabolites during seed development in the model plant Arabidopsis and crop species canola, flax, pulses and wheat. Our integrated approaches and studies using the model and crop plants produced foundational and comprehensive datasets. Analysis of these datasets identified developmental and stage-specific programs that are connected to gene expression and metabolic regulation during seed development with implications for seed traits in crop plants.