Discipline: Biological Sciences
Subcategory: Plant Research
Session: 3
Room: Marriott Balcony A
Evan Buckner - University of Arkansas
Co-Author(s): Dr. Erich Grotewold, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI ; Dr. Nan Jiang, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI
For over a century Maize has risen to be the United States top commodity crop, and is one of the most accessible crops in the country and world. However, through continuous hybridization of maize for selected traits there has been a reduction of the flavone apigenin, a subclass of the flavonoid family. Apigenin has been linked to quelling the onset of certain chronic diseases such as liver, lung, and colon cancer, heart disease, and Type II Diabetes. In addition to helping stop chronic diseases the apigenin also possesses anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, and anti-angiogenic activities as well as restores the body to normal metabolic functioning. Within maize, there are a number of pathways that (when blocked) allow for certain flavonoid pathways, flavones and phlobaphenes, to be expressed. Specifically we looked at the flavone apigenin through blocking the pathways that lead to phlobaphenes, maysin. We believe that by blocking these pathways in the maize, that there will be an increased amount of the flavone apigein. To obtain the higher content of this flavone we used the line P1-rr;a1 which from previous studies, was found to have an increased amount of the apigenin. We crossed this with sm1and sm2. The sm1 and sm2 strains are phenotypes that have salmon colored silks and should block the pathway to the flavone maysin which aids the plant in the deterrence of the corn earworm pest. In growing these lines we see the homozygous recessive allele P1-rr;a1;sm1 and P1-rr;a1;sm2 that have the right combination of alleles to possibly show the increased apigenin. Through breeding these two lines we hope get a recessive double mutant that contains a higher content of the apigenin chemical through blocking of the flavone maysin and the phlobaphenes in the final mature maize crop.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): Graciously funded through the Summer Research Opportunities Program at Michigan State University
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Erich Grotewold, erbuckne@uark.edu
Role: Research conducted by student included planting maize samples and collecting tissue samples as well as running samples through HPLC-MS/MS.