Abstract Detail

Functional Genetics/Genomics

Ogunda, Ari [1], Liebelt, Donna [1], Waddell, Eric [1], Doherty, Colleen [1].

“What is ‘Hop’pening?” - Improving Humulus lupulus (hop) Annotation to Enable Identification of Phytochemical Regulation Pathways.

Recent advances have enabled high-throughput elucidation of phytochemical pathways. However, testing proposed candidate genes and understanding metabolite regulation is hampered by poor annotation in many species.   Environmental factors such as heat or pests can alter the composition of phytochemicals. These environmental factors continue to change with a global rise in temperature and more frequent extreme weather events associated with global warming. There is little understanding of how these environmental factors influence how they make these phytochemical products for many species that are important to human health. These phytochemical compositions affect both the nutritional value and taste of plants valuable to us as humans. Using Humulus lupus as a model, we are exploring the effects of warm nighttime temperatures on hop phytochemical production. While most known for its role in beer production, hop is also a rich source of nutraceuticals, including antioxidants, antimicrobials, and essential oils. Though the phytochemical profile is extensive, understanding the regulation of these pathways is hampered by limited annotation. Accurate annotation of genes and isoforms is critical to identifying the regulatory control. The ability to identify transcriptional start sites and isoform variants is essential to understanding the cis-regulatory control of transcription and the ability to identify alternative splicing events common in plant temperature responses. To improve hop's annotation resources, we have completed PacBio Iso-Seq Analysis across different tissues and times of the day. We have identified unique isoforms and transcripts not present in the current annotation. This data will be a resource to researchers working in hop, and the analysis pipeline can be used to improve annotation in other species.

1 - North Carolina State Univeresity, Biochemistry, 120 Broughton Dr. CB7622, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA

Keywords:
Phytochemical
sequence annotation
Humulus lupulus
Iso-Seq.

Presentation Type: Poster
Session: P2, Functional Genetics and Genomics Posters
Location: Virtual/Virtual
Date: Tuesday, July 20th, 2021
Time: 5:00 PM(EDT)
Number: P2CG008
Abstract ID:964
Candidate for Awards:None