PhD Student Institute of Sustainable Biotechnology, Inter American University of Puerto Rico Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico
Body of Abstract: Musa spp. is a genus of important fruit crops such as plantains and bananas worldwide due to their nutritional values. Puerto Rico has few cultivar varieties which are grown commercially in the island. However, the genetic background of those commercially grow varieties is not well known. Developing RNA seq based molecular markers can help to assess the genetic identity of commercially important varieties of Musa spp. grown in Puerto Rico. Also, conventional micropropagation (CM) techniques have been used globally to produce disease-free plantlets at commercial scale. Most widely used methods of micropropagation utilizes either test tubes or temporary immersion bioreactor (TIB) for in-vitro plant growth. Our preliminary results comparing the morphological and biochemical parameters of explants grown under test tubes and TIB have shown that plantain plantlets regenerated under TIB show more robust phenotypic traits. The genetic signatures underlying the enhanced phenotypic traits in TIB grown plantlets are yet to be explored. Therefore, our goal is to carry out a comparative study of transcriptomes of plantain tissues grown under two different in-vitro techniques. RNA was extracted from replicates of flash-frozen apical leaves tissues of two plantain varieties grown on test tubes and the transcriptome was sequenced using Illumina (pair-end) platform. We generated approximately 210 million reads, which were then filtered to clean reads (Q20% of >97.5%). 72.2% of SNP variants were located on the exotic regions. We are currently identifying the differentially expressed candidate genes. The study will provide a dataset for assessing the genetic diversity of plantains grown in Puerto Rico. Additionally, identification of candidate genetic loci controlling the robust phenotypic traits in TIB grown plantlets can help us improve the plant productivity.