College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences

Announcement of Final Thesis Defense Crop and Soil Science M.S. Degree: Michael Ozolins

June 5, 2025 9:30AM - 10:30AM

PSSB A 271 Conf Room

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CHARACTERIZATION OF SEED DEVELOPMENT AND ACQUISITION OF DESICCATION TOLERANCE IN WILD PEA (PISUM SATIVUM SUBSP. ELATIUS)

Members of the Examining Committee and their Department:

1. Dr. Eric Patterson - Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences

1. Dr. Erin Burns - Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences

1. Dr. Christina DiFonzo – Department of Entomology

ABSTRACT

Seed development is an essential phase in a plant's lifecycle, allowing plants to survive adverse environmental conditions, disperse their offspring, and support successful sexual reproduction. There are three major phases of seed development: embryogenesis, seed fill, and maturation. During maturation seeds acquire several traits that enable them to survive desiccation, remaining alive in the dry state, and to germinate when conditions are acceptable. There has been little work focusing on the regulatory network controlling desiccation tolerance acquisition in non-model species, which is essential as model species do not have many of the seed traits that are found in wild species. The objective of this work was to profile gene expression throughout seed development in wild pea with a focus on seed maturation and desiccation tolerance acquisition. We performed a RNAseq experiment on a developmental time course of wild pea, using weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) on a set of 14,609 differentially expressed genes in either cotyledon or embryonic axis tissue, resulting in a gene network representing 31 gene expression modules. Three modules were positively correlated, and one module being negatively correlated with seed maturation and desiccation tolerance and therefore of particular interest. In positively correlated modules, LEAs and HSP were found to be core components for the acquisition of desiccation tolerance. In addition, there was strong overlap between modules genes and essential genes for desiccation tolerance in wild pea with model species and RAP2-1 were specifically identified as important hub genes associated with seed maturity. This work characterized several known and novel genes for both seed maturation and the acquisition of desiccation tolerance which serve as a resource for further gene characterization.

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