Exploiting Brachypodium to Identify Cell Wall-Specific Responses to Drought

Responses to drought in grasses are highly complex, affecting the whole plant and involving a cascade of signaling and transcription networks. The water deficit stress imposed ultimately results in changes to the cell wall structure and architecture. It is believed the initial make-up of the cell wall and cell wall specific changes may afford stress tolerance or susceptibility. Understanding the
molecular activities behind such drought tolerance traits are of great economic and environmental value as precipitation patterns continue to fluctuate and demand of sustainable food and fuel resources rise.
Brachypodium distachyon is a suitable model for such research, as the species exhibits a wide range of natural variation. Aberystwyth University is host to a large Brachypodium germplasm, of which over 150 lines have already been screened for drought sensitivity. From this data, drought tolerance traits were measured and used to identify those genotypes differing in tolerance at the extreme ends of the normal distribution. With the support of industrial sponsors, DLF Trifolium, and the BBSRC, these genotypes may then be used to source information regarding cell wall gene expression in response to drought by way of qPCR and the variations in cell wall components using biochemical analysis techniques.