Title of project: Physiological and Molecular Basis of Heat Tolerance in maize
Project funding: Institute
Total approved cost of the project:

Objective:

• Physio-biochemical analysis of contrasting maize genotypes under heat stress
• Identification of heat stress tolerance in recombinant inbred lines (RILs)
• Expression profiling of heat shock proteins (HSPs) genes conferring heat tolerance to heat stress in maize

Project team: Ishwar Singh, Pranjal Yadava and Avni

Major achievements: –

• Contrasting genotypes offer a tractable resource for characterization of general mechanism of hest stress adaption in maize Comparing two such genotypes- DTPYC9F119 (tolerant) andK64R (susceptible) reveal that accumulation of chlorophyll and soluble proteins, greater membrane stability, modulation of anti-oxidant gene expression, lower transpiration rate, lower increase of internal CO2 concentration are some of the adaptive mechanisms promoting heat stress tolerance in maize.
  
• The expression profiling of six ZmHsp genes (ZmHsp-22, ZmHsp-26, ZmHsp-60, 8ZmHsp-70, ZmHsp-82, ZmHsp-101) was studied in two contrasting maize inbred lines (LM-17, heat-stress tolerant; HKI-1015wg8, heat-stress susceptible) at seedling stage. ZmHsp genes showed differential expression under heat-stress in two contrasting genotypes. ZmHsp-22 and ZmHsp-101 showed strong up-regulation during recovery phase in LM-17. ZmHsp 22, ZmHsp70 and ZmHSp82 showed higher upregulation at 12h of heat-stress treatment in LM-17. Genes ZmHsp 22, ZmHsp70 and ZmHSp82 and ZmHsp-101 appear to be important in imparting heat stress tolerance in LM-17.