Poster: Temperature responses

Abs # 129: Functional genomics study of novel heat-shock responsive genes from plants

Presenter:	Charng, Yee-yung , yycharng@gate.sinica.edu.tw
Authors	Charng, Yee-yung  (A)   Liu, Nai-Yu  (A)   Hsu, Fu-Chiun  (A)   Liu, Hsiang Chin  (A)   Ko, Swee-suak  (A)   Wang, Chiu-Chung  (A)   Wu, Shu-hua  (A)
Affiliations:	(A): Institute of BioAgricultural Sciences, Acdemia Sinica

Genome projects lead to the discovery of many unknown function genes, creating huge rooms for biologist to explore. With the development of studying tools, such as microarray and T-DNA tagging, process of identification of gene function of plant becomes easier and quicker than ever. However, not every genes are easy to study with. Redundancy in function due to gene families often leads to no obvious alteration in growth, development or response to stress. Moreover, very subtle change in phenotype resulted from gene mutation might escape high throughtput screening. Here we report cases of functional genomics study of two novel heat shock responsive genes in Arabidopsis. To cope with elevated temperature, a number of highly conserved genes are induced immediately to produce protective proteins. This response, known as induced thermotolerance, is so common that it has been described in a wide range of organisms from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. So far, heat shock proteins (HSPs) with chaperone function are among the most well-characterized genes. However, the identification of novel heat shock genes suggests new mechanisms involved in induced thermotolerance. Elucidating the function of these genes might provide us better insight on how plant response to high temperture stress.