Molecular mechanisms of cold tolerance in oat
Olof Olsson, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology

Oat is an important food and feed plant in Sweden. It has some very valuable assets like unique antioxidants and betaglucans, a favourable fatty acid and protein content. In addition, it is gluten free. However, yields are lower than e.g. wheat. The single most important reason for this is the climate. A Swedish winter oat, which presently does not exist, would increase yield by almost 30%. From an EST sequencing program we identified 2866 different genes from a cold acclimated English winter oat variety denoted Gerald. Among these genes, several were similar to cold and/or drought-induced genes previously identified in rice, wheat, rye, barley and Arabidopsis. More than 100 of these genes encoded putative transcription factors. By taking advantage of the Arabidopsis genome sequence, knock-out mutants and arraydata from cold acclimated plants in combination with advanced bioinforrmatics we are now in the process of defining and characterising key regulatory genes involved in cold acclimation. Such genes will be used as tools in transgenic experiments and as molecular markers in breeding to produce more cold hardy oat varieties. This knowledge will also be applied to other plants, in particular rice.