Ai Kitazumi

Date of Award

12-2013

Level of Access Assigned by Author

Campus-Only Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Botany and Plant Pathology

Advisor

Benildo G. de los Reyes

Second Committee Member

David De Koeyer

Third Committee Member

Stephanie Burnett

Abstract

The Andean strain of the cultivated potato (Solanum tuberosum subspecies andigenum) is a product of farmer-selections for the typically harsh conditions of upland and dry land agroecosystems. These traditional cultivars are presumed to have retained much of the ancestral genetic variation for biotic and abiotic stress tolerance mechanisms, which have been eroded in the subspecies tuberosum as a consequence of targeted trait-based breeding. The goal of this study was to establish the baseline functional genomics analysis system that will allow future hypothesis-driven dissection of the regulatory aspects of abiotic stress tolerance mechanisms in the andigena potatoes. integration of growth and stress-related responses. The transcriptional regulators HD-ZIP-Phavulota and Myb101, known to have important roles in vegetative and/or reproductive growth and development in Arabidopsis are the likely targets of the modulatory actions of miR166 and miR159, respectively in Sullu potato. Computational modeling of miR166-Phavulota and miR159-Myb101 regulatory networks using heterologous information from the model Arabidopsis reiterated the central roles of growth modulation (dormancy-like response) for the adaptability of Sullu potato to chronic stress environments. The potential biological significance of novel miRNA molecules (miR2911, miR5301, miR482) were investigated by ab initio analysis.

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