More genes for a higher fitness under salt stress: identification of genes whose expressional differences, based on differences in ploidy, lead to a better salt tolerance.

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To ensure the food security, an increase in food production will be necessary. In this context, improving salt tolerance of crops will be an issue since many agricultural areas are suffering from high salinity. Analyses of tetraploid Arabidopsis thaliana plants have revealed a connection between polyploidy and salt tolerance. Polyploidisation events have occurred in the history of most flowering plants and have significantly contributed to species evolution, mostly through increasing genomic variability and enabling adaptations to changing environments. Unravelling the molecular mechanisms behind the increased salt tolerance in polyploid individuals will increase our understanding of evolutionary forces as well as enable the development of salt tolerant cultivars based on naturally occurring genetic variation. Tetraploid roots have been identified as the determining factor for higher Na tolerance and a strategy to identify contributing genes was established with the host lab. In the proposed project, a targeted approach will seek for candidate genes in tetraploid knock-out mutants. Additionally, evaluation of differences in expression via RNA deep sequencing (RNA-seq) will be performed to select candidate genes. Among these, genes with relevance to the salt tolerance will be studied through the characterisation of tetraploid mutants and their response to abiotic stresses.