Poster: Vegetative development

Abs # 328: A Functional Genomics Approach to Identifying Regulators of Wood Formation in Forest Trees

Presenter:	Cooke, Janice E.K., janice.cooke@rsvs.ulaval.ca
Authors	Bomal, Claude  (A)   Bedon, Frank  (A)   Roy, Vicky  (A)   Blais, Sylvie  (A)   Giguere, Isabelle  (A)   Morency, Marie-Josee  (B)   Berube, Hugo  (A)   Lavasseur, Caroline  (B)   Tremblay, Laurence  (B)   Ouellet, Mario  (A)   Legay, Sylvain  (A)   Lafarguette, Florian  (A)   Boileau, Francis  (A)   Chabot, Caroline  (B)   Morency, Frederic  (B)   Pelletier, Francoise  (B)   Pavy, Nathalie  (A)   Cooke, Janice E.K. (A)   Seguin, Armand  (B)   MacKay, John  (A)
Affiliations:	(A): Universite Laval, Centre de Recherche en Biologie Forestiere (B): Natural Resources Canada, Laurentian Forestry Centre
Web Site:	http://www.arborea.ca

Wood formation is an exquisitely dynamic process that is modulated by a variety of developmental and environmental cues. We are using a functional genomics approach to identify and characterize regulators that influence morphological and biochemical wood properties in two forest tree taxa, poplar and white spruce. To this end, we have selected as candidates for functional analyses a number of genes from forest tree EST collections that we hypothesize are regulators of wood formation. Most of these candidate genes encode putative transcription factors or other components of signal transduction networks. As a means to further define the role that the products of these genes play in wood formation and carbon partitioning, a suite of transgenic poplar and spruce trees is being created that misexpress each of the candidate genes. In tandem with the transgenic experiments, we are also conducting manipulative physiology experiments with wildtype trees to explore how wood formation is governed by environmental factors, and specifically to examine how the candidate genes respond to these factors. Transcript profiling using microarrays will play an integral role in assessing how these candidate genes and environmental conditions act to modulate wood formation.