Biotechnology

Research Group Leader - Dr Effie Mutasa-Göttgens

Objectives

We work with UK sugar beet growers to conduct strategic basic research to raise the profile of UK-specific breeding targets on the priority list of multinational sugar beet breeders.

The main thrust of our research is to find improved genetic methods for bolting and flowering control in sugar beet and ultimately to stop unwanted bolting. A new project area to investigate alternative uses of sugar beet pulp is also being established.

Bolts & flowers...knowing what really comes first in beet is the key question

Bolting & flowering control is required to tackle weed beet problems and to allow early sowing for higher crop yields. Extensive bolting in the 2008/09 crop clearly showed that better genetic targets for the control of bolting are needed. Breeders tell us that we should help them by conducting further basic research. Sugar beet is a highly profitable spring break crop in the UK arable rotation where, 120,000ha of the crop is cultivated. An income of nearly £203M per annum is currently generated for growers. Effective control of bolting and flowering will be pivotal in ensuring the continued profitability of sugar beet crops for UK growers. For this, new breeding targets must allow plants to withstand temperatures of 12°C and below without becoming vernalized so that they are suited to the UK spring climate.

Sugar beet pulp is largely used as feed for ruminant animals and yet is a rich source of extra sugars which are locked into the plant cell walls and currently unavailable for other processes. We have started a new project to investigate the nature and genetic basis of the cross-linking in sugar beet cell walls, aimed at improving the digestibility/nutritional quality of pulp and also at releasing sugars for downstream processes like fermentation.

Oour research focuses on:

• Vernalization and devernalization processes in the shoot apex with particular attention on the role of plant growth regulators (hormones).

• Flower development, a process that is separate from bolting, and controlled through the long-day photoperiod pathway to flowering.

• Understanding the nature and genetics of cell wall cross linking in sugar beet

Current projects

1. Gibberellin signalling in the vernalized shoot apex.

2. Bolting control: relationships of the bolting gene (B-gene) and Gibberellin.

3. Flowering control: identification and characterisation of sugar beet floral transcription factors.

4. Improved sugar beet saccharification by manipulation of cell wall phenolics

Current group members

Dr Tansy Chia
Andrea Jennings
Helen Holmes
Dr Belinda Townsend

Our group is in the Centre for Crop Genetic Improvement and closely integrated with Professor Peter Hedden's group for bolting and flowering control work and Professor Peter Shewry's group for work on sugar beet cell walls.

Key collaborations

Industry partners: The British Beet Research Organisation (BBRO); Sugar Beet Breeders - SESVanDerHave; KWS, and Syngenta. With the BBRO we collaborate to focus on targets specific to UK growers and with the breeding companies, we share research results and materials to develop experimental models and strategies to help us investigate gene function in sugar beet. Ultimately, our results are passed onto sugar beet breeders for further development and incorporation into new improved cultivars.

Academic partners: Professor Christian Jung's Group at the Plant Breeding Institute, CAU, Kiel, Germany for collaborations on the bolting gene project . Dr David Hanke, Cambridge University, with whom we are developing a new collaboration on hormone signalling in sugar beet.

Recent publication

Mutasa-Gottgens ES & Hedden P (2009). Gibberellin as a factor in floral regulatory networks. Invited Review Journal of Experimental Botany 60 (7): 1979-1989. http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/60/7/1979

Effie Mutasa-Göttgens, Aiming Qi, Ann Mathews, Stephen Thomas, Andrew Phillips and Peter Hedden. (2009) Modification of gibberellin signalling (metabolism & signal transduction) in sugar beet: analysis of potential targets for crop improvement. Transgenic Research. 18(2): 301-308. http://www.springerlink.com/content/w748l12523r46758/

Chia T, Müller A, Jung C & Mutasa-Göttgens ES (2008). Sugar beet contains a large CONSTANS-LIKE gene family including a CO homologue that is independent of the early-bolting (B) gene locus. Journal of Experimental Botany 59(10):2735-2748. http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/ern129v1

Jung, C., Qian, W., Büttner, B., Hohmann, U., Mutasa-Göttgens, E., Chia, T., Müller, A. (2007) Using genomic information for altering bolting and flowering behaviour of crop plants. Molecular Plant Breeding 5:156-158. http://www.molplantbreed.org/publish/abstract.asp?PaperID=709