Response of bZIP10-Overexpressing Brachypodium distachyon to Zinc

The micronutrient zinc (Zn) plays a key role in the animal and plant kingdoms. Zndeficient\ud soils impact plant production and can cause yield reductions of 40% or more.\ud Zn is also important for both human and plant development as a cofactor for over 200\ud enzymes. Zn-deficiency symptoms in plants include interveinal chlorosis, abnormally\ud shaped leaves, stunting and rosetting. Brachypodium distachyon has emerged as an\ud experimental model for temperate cereal crops and forage grasses. BZIP10 is a protein\ud with basic domain binding DNA and leucine zipper dimerization motif found to enhance\ud oxidative stress resistance and may be involved in Zn homeostasis. My objective was to\ud assess the effect of bZIP10-overexpressing Brachypodium distachyon to varying Zn\ud concentrations. Wildtype (WT) and 3 transgenic type (TR) seedlings were grown in optimized hydroponics system for 3 weeks prior to initiation of experimental Zn conditions (no Zn, normal Zn, high 15x Zn). Samples were collected for gene expression analysis at 12hours, 24hours and 7 days after treatment. Preliminary results suggest no observable phenotypic differences between the different growing conditions and plant types. Preliminary gene expression analysis of WT and two TR plants show higher expression levels of BdbZIP10, BdIRT-1 and BdZIP4 in TR than WT