Award details

Manipulation of plant interactions with rhizobia in forage legumes.

Reference	BBS/E/G/00003392
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Leif Skot
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Inst of Grassland and Environmental Res
Department	Inst of Grassland and Environmental Res Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	193,664
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/1997
End date	31/03/1999
Duration	24 months

Abstract

Flavonoids exuded by legume roots induces the Rhizobium nodulation genes and probably play an important role in determining the pattern and distribution of root nodules. They are derived from the phenylpropanoid biosynthetic pathway, and manipulation of the type and distribution of flavonoids in root exudates would allow us to investigate the effect on Rhizobium strain competition and host-strain specificity (RO 2351, L R Mytton). Forage legumes such as Lotus corniculatus and Trifolium repens which can be genetically engineered via Agrobacterium rhizogenes will be used as experimental plants. Firstly, the identity of the inducing and inhibiting flavonoids exuded from the roots of Lotus corniculatus will be determined in order to enable the design of desirable changes in the type and distribution of flavonoids exuded. Such changes will be achieved by using antisense strategies targeting genes coding for key enzymes in the phenylpropanoid pathway and organ specific promotors (RO 2390, M P Robbins). The possible involvement of flavonoids in the inability of transformed hairy root cultures of Lotus and Trifolium to form root nodules until shoot formation takes place will be investigated. The exact stage of shoot formation at which nodulation will occur, and what factors are involved will be identified. Nodulation characteristics may also be manipulated by introducing lectin genes isolated from other legumes e.g. the pea lectin gene. Nodulins are defined as nodule specific proteins. Although a large number of nodulins have been found only a few have been identified with respect to their biochemical function. One of those is nodulin-100 or sucrose synthase. A partial CDNA clone from soybean root nodules is available, and it will be used as a probe to isolate full length CDNA clones from either soybean or Lotus root nodules. Transformation of Lotus corniculatus with additional copies or with antisense constructs should provide good tools to analyse the importance of this and other nodulins in the symbiosis (RO 2350, A J Gordon).

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Plant & Microbial Sciences (PMS)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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