Aim of the project is the genetic engineering of parthenocarpic plants in horticulture and to show the economical and social advantages derived from their use in agricolture. Thus, species/genotypes of plants cultivated in the mediterrean area will be use to achieve the project aim.
The general task of the Verona unit is to coordinate the whole project. Thus, and in this sense, the Verona unit will partecipate to all activities. Furthermore, the Verona unit partecipate with specific tasks:
- on the basis of the information obtained during the project, to choose and define the proper constructs to use in the different species and varieties. Task of this unit is also to provide all the know-how necessary for the analysis of the GM plants: from the choice of organs and tissues to their way of storage before the molecular analysis, extraction of nucleic acids, methods and their specific components (e.g. choice of optimal primers, etc);
- to coordinate and execute, in concerted action with the units responsible of the specific action (seed-propagated and vegetatively propagated horticultural plants), the molecular analysis (transgenic state, copy number of the transgene, transgene expression);
- to be responsible of the AFLP-TP study. The sequence data will be then provided to the Torino unit (responsible of this activity) for the bioinformatic elaboration. On the basis of the data obtained and elaborated, the Verona unit will build microarrays which will be tested and optimised together with the Torino unit;
- to evaluate the enviromental risks derived from the cultivation of GM DefH9-iaaM plants, in close interaction with the responsible of the field trials
