2012- 21st Annual NC State Undergraduate Research Symposium

Session Time : 4/10/12 12:15 PM - 4/10/12 1:30 PM

Content Area : Crop Science

Poster Appointment: , -

Student Presenters :
Kira Ashton Pruitt Biology

Mentors and/or Co-Authors :
Ralph Dewey Crop Science

Abstract Title : Inducing Early Flowering in Tobacco using a PVX Viral Expression System

Abstract :
This project aims to incorporate the Flowering Locus T (FT) gene from Arabidopsis into a Potato Virus X (PVX) vector to induce early flowering in tobacco cultivars. The ability to induce early flowering represents a powerful tool that could greatly accelerate the breeding process by shortening the generation time of the plant. The FT gene has already been successfully incorporated as a stable transgene into the tobacco plant genome for this purpose; however, a viral vector system offers several advantages: it allows researchers to induce early flowering into any tobacco cultivar without having to initially introduce the stable transgene in advance; this methodology utilizes a transgenic virus, so the virus is transferred to each individual plant and only targeted plants will be infected, thus, this system doesn’t require maintenance or screening for the FT gene in each generation; this methodology means that the trait isn’t passed from parent to offspring so the plants are non-transgenic, which offers a strong benefit due to the current controversy over transgenic plants; and the gene doesn’t need to be crossed out of the final cultivar since the seeds won’t carry the virus. After successful propagation of the virus throughout the plant, the infected leaf tissue can be frozen for storage and used at a later time to inoculate other plants with the FT virus, making the system a quick, effective means to achieve flowering and collect seeds at any time with little preparation.