Himachal Journal of Agricultural Research

Surender Singh Chandel ¹, P. N. Sharma ², Kamal Dev Sharma ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, CSK Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishvavidyalaya, Palampur-176 062, IN
2 Department of Plant Pathology, CSK Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishvavidyalaya, Palampur-176 062, IN

Abstract

Sugars, besides source of energy, also provide tolerance and acclimation to plants under abiotic stresses. In plants, sugars are transported via specialized protein molecules called as sugar transporters. One of the most ubiquitous soluble sugars in plants, glucose-6-phosphate, is transported from cytosol into the chloroplast by glucose-6-phosphate/phosphate translocators (GPTs). Search of chickpea sequences revealed existence of two phylogentically diverse GPT genes in chickpea named as GPT1 and GPT2. The gene GPT1 (coding region: 1200 bases, 41.58% GC content) is present on chromosome 5 whereas GPT2 (coding region: 1164 bases, 38.74% GC content) on chromosome 1. Of these two, GPT1 was not active in chickpea leaves whereas GPT2, under heat stress, over-expressed vis-à-vis control in leaves of heat-tolerant ICC 15614 and down-regulated in heatsusceptible ICC 10685 suggesting that GPT2 is associated with heat tolerance in chickpea. The GPT2 can be a potential candidate gene for heat-tolerance in chickpea.

Keywords

Chickpea, Cicer arietinum, Glucose-6-phosphate Transporter, Gene Expression, High Temperature, Heat Stress.

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