Date of Award

11-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Biology

First Advisor

Dr. Synan AbuQamar

Second Advisor

Dr. Rabah lratni

Third Advisor

Professor Ismail Saadoun

Abstract

Plants are exposed to many environmental stresses that affect their growth and development. These stresses include biotic stresses (via organisms) and abiotic stresses (via environment). Plants respond to these stresses by transcriptional reprogramming and different signaling pathways. Arabidopsis thaliana has shown great sensitivity to the biotic stress Botrytis cinerea. The WRKY33 gene plays an important role in plant defense mechanism against this pathogen. The overall goal is to identify common regulated genes of wrky33 mutant and 35S:WRKY33 over expressing transgenic lines in response to B. cinerea; ultimately to improve plant stress tolerance in Arabidopsis. The specific aims are to: (1) identify Arabidopsis regulated genes in response to B. cinerea infection; (2) determine common up- and down-regulated genes in response to B. cinerea infection in Arabidopsis wrky33 mutant and 35S:WRKY33 overexpression lines; and (3) characterize the function of the common genes in response to B. cinerea. To achieve these objectives, a microarray-based analysis of Arabidopsis wild type, wrky33 mutant and 35S:WRKY33 overexpression line in response to B. cinerea will be studied for their regulation to disease and stress responses. The results of this study will help identifying the up- and down-regulated defense genes to these stresses and improving crop tolerance to these stresses. In addition, Arabidopsis expression profiling of defense-regulated genes in response to these stresses will help understanding how the plants respond to stress in field conditions. Overall, this can help introducing defense genes that make the crops more resistance to different stresses, particularly B. cinerea.

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