Description

For a leafy vegetable such as lettuce, the product value is for an important part linked to proper plant architecture. The ideal lettuce architecture allows for maximal resource acquisition (root) and proper head formation (shoot), while preventing leaf malformations caused by nutrient deficiencies. Moreover, upon harvest, the leaves have to be at the correct developmental stage, not too young for firmness nor too old to avoid bitterness or early post-harvest senescence. This projects is part of the large Lettucknow program and focusses on the developmental regulation of lettuce architecture. The challenge is to translate the knowledge from model plants like Arabidopsis thaliana to lettuce, e.g. by studying the evolution of known key regulators in the Lactuca pangenome, and to discover key lettuce genes by deploying natural variation and association genetics. On the one hand we study the timing of head production, which is the result of leaf initiation rate and the timing of transition from rosette to head formation, the leaf quality, and how shoot and root development influence each other. On the other hand, we study the molecular mechanism behind tipburn, one of the major problems that affects the quality of leafy vegetables. It is characterized by browning of the leaf edges as a result of insufficient calcium. Candidate genes for both processes will be identified e.g. by GWAS analysis on a field trial of 200 different Lactuca sativa accessions and by dedicated studies in the lab. The role of these candidates will be evaluated in vitro with the use of knockout and overexpression lines.

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