University of Florida

Many research efforts seek define the function of novel plant genes. Even in the model system, Arabidopsis thaliana, a significant number of expressed genes have defied convenient characterization.  The Rosaceae family contains a large number of economically important fruit, nut and ornamental crops. Analysis of the expressed genes of this family reveals that a significant number (10-15%) are not found in species outside the family.  Are these genes novel regulators that contribute to their unique features and desirable products? 

The work of this NSF-sponsored project leverage available EST resources, innovative methods in EST sequence capture, the agility of Gateway cloning and the efficient transformation capacities of Arabidopsis and strawberry to characterize genes in Rosaceae of unknown function. The Rosaceae contains diverse fruit, nut, wood and ornamental plant species and separate evolution and heavy cultivation have certainly contributed to a diverse transcript landscape. Approximately 10% of any Rosaceae species EST collection defies convenient description based on known homologs from model systems. It is of great interest to identify the function of these expressed genes, as they may demonstrate a function that lends to the unique characters of the Rosaceae family.

 The activities proposed stand to expand model-system derived paradigms and add new resolution to existing pathways. The scientific merit of this work lies in its innovative, high-throughput means of exploiting the best available tools to not only novel identify gene sequence, but also describe novel gene function. Strawberry is a readily transformable member of the family and studies of coding regions indicate conservation between gene across the family, suggesting strawberry will be an effective surrogate to discover gene function in Rosaceae. The broader impacts of the work lie in expanding the Rosaceae and strawberry EST public resources, graduate training, post doctoral training. Definition of novel gene function will expand current models. Phsiological relevance of new genes will allow researchers to develop molecular markers and possibly transgenics to assist growers and benefit consumers.