A bright, sweet evolution: a molecular genetic analysis of Calvin cycle gene expression response to light and sugar in the liverwort marchantia polymorpha, and insights into Calvin cycle promoter motif enrichment in land plants
Massenburg, Lynnicia Naomi
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/97342
Description
Title
A bright, sweet evolution: a molecular genetic analysis of Calvin cycle gene expression response to light and sugar in the liverwort marchantia polymorpha, and insights into Calvin cycle promoter motif enrichment in land plants
Author(s)
Massenburg, Lynnicia Naomi
Issue Date
2017-04-25
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Long, Steve
Committee Member(s)
Ort, Don
Moose, Steve
Department of Study
Plant Biology
Discipline
Plant Biology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
M.S.
Degree Level
Thesis
Keyword(s)
Marchantia polymorpha
Liverwort
Arabdipsis thaliana
Dark response
Sugar response
Gene expression
Calvin cycle
Promoter motifs
Position weight matrix analysis
Abstract
Higher plants are frequently used as model organisms in Calvin Benson Bassham cycle (CBB) research given their ease of use in the laboratory. The expression of CBB genes in higher plants is well known to be regulated by light, sugar and plant development, yet no focus has been given to lower plant CBB gene expression regulation. Marchantia polymorpha, a bryophyte in the Marchantiphyta division and newly emerging model liverwort plant, has been used in this study to demonstrate its potential use in CBB promoter evolution research. Transferring plants to darkness caused the downregulation of CBB genes MpSBPase, MpFBPase, MpPRK, MpRbcS1A and MpRbcS1B in Marchantia coinciding with the downregulation of these genes in higher plants. Marchantia CBB gene expression response to the exogenous sugars sucrose and glucose was also weakly downregulated, similar to higher plant CBB gene downregulation. However, a CBB promoter motif analysis between Marchantia and a higher plant Arabidopsis thaliana showed a major difference in over-represented motifs with an affinity to bind transcription factors responsive to light, sugar and development in MpCBB promoters compared to AtCBB promoters. Given that Marchantia is one of the earliest land plants, the findings here suggest that good model to understand the evolution of control of photosynthesis-related gene expression in the evolution of highly differentiated flowering plants.
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