PI CBGP: José M Jiménez-Gómez

Adaptive Genetics and Genomics

Co-PI CBGP: Krzysztof Wabnik

Synthetic biology of plant signaling circuits

PI CEPLAS: Björn Usadel

Co-PI CEPLAS: Shizue Matsubara

Project summary:

Mutations in genes controlling environmental signaling to the circadian clock have been strongly selected during domestication and improvement in many crop species. This recurrent selection allowed plants to change their constraints for environmental factors, allowing high performance at specific seasons and latitudes. In addition, changes in internal rhythms affect the strength and time of plant responses to abiotic stresses, providing strong selective advantages in particular situations. We have created tomato lines that recreate its original (wild) circadian rhythms and have used them to generate the highest resolution transcriptomic and metabolomic datasets available to date for tomato. In this proposal we add new experiments and use this dataset to investigate how domestication mutations in circadian clock genes have affected tomato's perception of the environment and its ability to respond to abiotic stresses. The systems biology knowledge acquired through this project will be useful to design new tomato varieties with enhanced performance tailored to specific environments.