WRKY Gene Family Drives Dormancy Release in Onion Bulbs

Francesco Mercati 
IBBR - UOS Palermo - Italy

June 15, 2022 (11:30-12:30)
Webinar Link: https://meet.goto.com/422129053

Abstract: Bulb dormancy of onion is a physiological state in which the vegetative growth of the plant is stopped and the resting bulbs waiting for the next season to sprout. Early sprouting affects shelf life and storability of onion bulbs and may occur due to premature dormancy breakage. Dormancy in onion depends on many genetic, environmental and agronomical factors. Biotic stresses, such as virus infection can greatly reduce onion shelf life, maybe due to the alteration of dormancy. We compared dormancy of onion yellow dwarf virus (OYVD)-infected and uninfected bulbs observing early sprouting and rooting in the virus-infected plants. In these last plants, a lower abscisic acid (ABA) level at harvest time, which is usually considered as the start of the dormancy, has been also observed. The whole transcriptome during three different stages of dormancy (harvest time, full dormancy and dormancy release) has been developed, founding 5390 and 1322 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in uninfected and OYDV-infected bulbs, respectively. Interestingly, several transcription factors (TF) were up-regulated only in the uninfected bulbs. Among them, there were three genes belonging to the WRKY TF family that were upregulated during dormancy release. Co-expression network analysis highlighted a correlation between the expression of AcWRKY32 and genes driving key physiological processes in dormancy release of well-studied plant systems. For breeders, these genes may represent targets for controlling early sprouting in onion, reducing post-harvest losses

Author's Info: https://ibbr.cnr.it/ibbr/info/people/francesco-mercati

Link to video: https://youtu.be/8NrEfg4IOHk