Functional Dissection of the Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Stay-Green Phenotype Associated with Molecular Variation at an Ortholog of Mendel’s I Gene for Cotyledon Color: Implications for Crop Production and Carotenoid Biofortification

Sivasakthi, K and Marques, E and Kalungwana, N and Carrasquilla-Garcia, N and Chang, P L and Bergmann, E M and Bueno, E and Cordeiro, M and Sani, A S S G and Udupa, S M and Rather, I A and Rouf Mir, R and Vadez, V and Vandemark, G J and Gaur, P M and Cook, D R and Boesch, C and von Wettberg, E J B. and Kholova, J and Penmetsa, R (2019) Functional Dissection of the Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Stay-Green Phenotype Associated with Molecular Variation at an Ortholog of Mendel’s I Gene for Cotyledon Color: Implications for Crop Production and Carotenoid Biofortification. International Journal of Molecular Sciences(TSI), 20 (22). pp. 1-33. ISSN 1422-0067

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Abstract

“Stay-green” crop phenotypes have been shown to impact drought tolerance and nutritional content of several crops. We aimed to genetically describe and functionally dissect the particular stay-green phenomenon found in chickpeas with a green cotyledon color of mature dry seed and investigate its potential use for improvement of chickpea environmental adaptations and nutritional value. We examined 40 stay-green accessions and a set of 29 BC2F4-5 stay-green introgression lines using a stay-green donor parent ICC 16340 and two Indian elite cultivars (KAK2, JGK1) as recurrent parents. Genetic studies of segregating populations indicated that the green cotyledon trait is controlled by a single recessive gene that is invariantly associated with the delayed degreening (extended chlorophyll retention). We found that the chickpea ortholog of Mendel’s I locus of garden pea, encoding a SGR protein as very likely to underlie the persistently green cotyledon color phenotype of chickpea. Further sequence characterization of this chickpea ortholog CaStGR1 (CaStGR1, for carietinum stay-green gene 1) revealed the presence of five different molecular variants (alleles), each of which is likely a loss-of-function of the chickpea protein (CaStGR1) involved in chlorophyll catabolism. We tested the wild type and green cotyledon lines for components of adaptations to dry environments and traits linked to agronomic performance in different experimental systems and different levels of water availability. We found that the plant processes linked to disrupted CaStGR1 gene did not functionality affect transpiration efficiency or water usage. Photosynthetic pigments in grains, including provitaminogenic carotenoids important for human nutrition, were 2–3-fold higher in the stay-green type. Agronomic performance did not appear to be correlated with the presence/absence of the stay-green allele. We conclude that allelic variation in chickpea CaStGR1 does not compromise traits linked to environmental adaptation and agronomic performance, and is a promising genetic technology for biofortification of provitaminogenic carotenoids in chickpea.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Research Program : Asia Research Program : Innovation Systems for the Drylands (ISD)
CRP:	CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes and Dryland Cereals (GLDC)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Mendel’s I gene, cosmetic stay-green, biofortification, green cotyledon, carotenoids, pro-vitamin A, chickpea, Cicer arietinum
Subjects:	Others > Drought Tolerance Others > Molecular Biology Others > Crop Physiology Others > Plant Nutrition Mandate crops > Chickpea Others > Legume Crops
Depositing User:	Mr Arun S
Date Deposited:	14 Nov 2019 03:56
Last Modified:	14 Nov 2019 03:56
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/11334
Official URL:	https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms20225562
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	UNSPECIFIED
Acknowledgement:	We thank Antonia Palkovic, Paul Gepts, and members of the Gepts group (University of California, Davis, CA, USA) for their support of activities conducted at UC Davis, and Claire Coyne (USDA-ARS, Pullman, WA, USA) and Bunyamin Taran (University of Saskatchewan, SK, Canada) for the germplasm and breeding lines used in this study.
Links:	Google Scholar

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