BioBam Scholarship Supported Project – with OmicsBox.
Researchers:
- Madhuri Gupta
- Dr. Pushpender Kumar
Project and Overview
At harvest, potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) tubers, one of the most important crops among vegetables, are dormant and will not sprout. Tubers contain shoot apical meristems on their surface with the ability to differenciate and grow into a new clone of the parent plant.
As period of posthavest is extended, tubers dormancy breaks and sprout process comences. Induction and release of tubers dormancy is a critical phase controlled by phytohormones and specific proteins. Some potato varieties are delayed on the sprouting time, due to which, overall crop yield decreases. Solutions to this problem could increase crop perfomance in 10%, being beneficial for farmers as they obtain more economic benefits when an early harvest reaches the market. Delayed sprout varieties at three different stages, were compared with normal varieties behaviour throughout phytohormonal levels, gene expression profile and significan biological process involved.
Potato flowers (Wikipedia)
Contribution of OmicsBox
Transcriptomics module has been mainly used for the research problem. The functional annotation of genes was carried out using Omicsbox. Protein domains were also identified through InterProScan. Different pathways can be established through KEGG pathway feature. List of genes is also studied in all three stages and can be established which genes are playing a different role. Furthermore, through differential gene expression, more specific UP and DOWN regulated genes were studied, which was very important for my research work, and gave me the accurate answers to my questions. OmicsBox helped to identify specific genes among of thousands of genes to be analysed in wet lab and made my study more specific and accurate.
Research Center
Agriculture University, India
