Genome-scale compositional comparisons towards drought tolerant genes in rice, date palm, maize and thale cress

• Main Authors: N. A., Mohd-Zim, S., Sulaiman, N. S., Yusoff, Ahmad Azmi, Nur Sabrina, Salleh, Mohd Syahmi, Zainuddin, Zarina, Samsulrizal, Nurul Hidayah
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English; English; Arabic; English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: S Agriculture (General)
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/86411/1/abtsract%20draft%2012_12_2020-45.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/86411/7/TECHNICAL%20SESSIONS.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/86411/8/GENOME-SCALE%20COMPOSITIONAL%20COMPARISONS%20TOWARDS%20DROUGHT%20TOLERANT%20GENES%20IN-nhs.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/86411/19/Malaysian%20Society%20of%20Applied%20Biology%20%28MSAB%29%20Virtual%20Seminar%202020_%20MSAB2020vs%20Presentation%20Schedule.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/86411/
• Institution: Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

Extreme and unpredictable weather has gradually posed a threat to the global production of the world’s staple food crops such as rice, wheat, and maize. For instance, drought had caused significant losses which makes drought-tolerant planting materials increasingly important not only for food security but also for the sustainability of agricultural activities. This could be done by first exploring the genetic materials that are responsible for survival in hot and dry conditions other than solely relying on conventional methods. The availability of various comparative genomics tools has allowed the identification of several potential drought-tolerant genes in plants such as wheat, tomato, maize and others. In this study, potential drought-tolerant genes in rice are predicted by identifying orthologous proteins between four species; Oryza sativa (rice), Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress), Zea mays (maize) and Pheonix dactylifera (date palm) using InParanoid, SonicParanoid and Mauve software tool. From the 9,952 orthologous proteins found among the four species, 8,573 sequences were annotated and assigned to 5,729 GO terms; classified into the biological process category (54%, 2777 sequences), molecular function category (65%, 3223 sequences) and cellular component category (58%, 2539 sequences). Sixty five genes were found to be represented under four drought tolerance GO terms; regulation of response to water deprivation (GO:2000070; 1 gene, 1.54% ); response to water deprivation (GO:0009414, 47 genes, 72.31%); behavioural response to water deprivation (GO:0042630, 11 genes, 16.92%) and; cellular response to water deprivation (GO:0042631, 6 genes, 9.23%). Narrowing down potential drought-stress response genes through this study could contribute to a better understanding and knowledge on the biological and functional analysis of drought-tolerant genes in rice.