General Conference abstract: The 21st International Conference - Life Sciences for Sustainable Development, Romania, September 15-17 2022

19/09/2022

Adriana Aurori, Orsolya Borsai, Rodica Pop, Cristian Radu Sisea

Poster presentation

Introduction:

Root traits are very important for the way in which plants are coping with hydric stress, a problem that becomes acute in recent years. Rhizobium rhizogenes can naturally transform plant cells, inducing roots growth. The transformation of hypocotyl produces the so called composite plants, which have the transformed roots (Ri roots) and wild type shoots. This system was already established for sunflower, but only in the context of using transformed bacteria carrying selection or reporter genes (Parks and Yordanov, 2020).

Aims:

We started to develop an experimental non-GMO transformation system of sunflower with R. rhizogenes allowing the monitoring of root growth and subsequently the functioning of the transformed roots.

Materials and Methods:

After co-cultivation with wild type R. rhizogenes, young sunflower hypocotyls were placed in a hydroponic culture in order to allow the monitoring of plant growth.

Results:

Hydroponic culture of plantlets in inverted black pots of appropriate dimension facilitates both, the growing of roots in the dark and easy access for performing the necessary genetic, morphological and physiological analyses of the roots, with the smallest interfering effect. The remaining challenge is to increase the ratio of Ri roots of transformed plants.

Conclusion:

The model presented in this paper enables the study of Ri roots in sunflower aiming the finding of root traits, e.g. length, biomass, architecture, indicators for tolerance to drought in sunflower.

Acknowledgements:

This work was supported by FACCE-JPI and RootsPlus,a SusCrop –ERA-NET project funded by the national funding agencies of partner countries, including the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI).

References:

1.Parks T. and Yordanov Y.S. (2020). Composite plants for a composite plant: an efficient protocol for root studies in the sunflower using composite plants approach. Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture.140:647-659.