Abiotic Stress Gene Networks in Poplar

Poplar is one of the fastest growing tree species in temperate climates and has many characteristics suitable for a biofuel feedstock.  Improving abiotic stress tolerance (i.e. tolerance to drought, salt and temperature)  of poplar clones used in plantation forestry is of significant economic importance. We used a network based approach to better understand the complex physiological, cellular, and molecular processes that underlie abiotic stress response in poplar. To this end we have utilized, 1) a baseline poplar functional gene network constructed by orthology driven projection from the Arabidopsis probabilistic gene network, and, 2)  gene co-expression  networks constructed from RNAseq based  abiotic stress response transcriptomes of poplar tissue types.  The predicted functional gene network and co-expressed gene clusters were used to identify abiotic stress-responsive gene modules and enriched biological processes. We will discuss, 1) the sub-network of genes and their hubs that are likely to play crucial roles during abiotic stress response, and, 2) abiotic stress driven alternative splicing patterns of the circadian oscillator components.