title: Screening for Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Rice: Salt, Cold, and Drought.
abstract: Rice (Oryza sativa) is the primary source of food for more than half of the world population. Most rice varieties are severely injured by abiotic stresses, with strong social and economic impact. Understanding rice responses to stress may help breeding for more tolerant varieties. However, papers dealing with stress experiments often describe very different experimental designs, thus making comparisons difficult. The use of identical setups is the only way to generate comparable data. This chapter is organized into three sections, describing the experimental conditions established at the Genomics of Plant Stress (GPlantS) unit of ITQB to assess the response of rice plants to three different abiotic stresses--high salinity, cold stress, and drought. All sections include a detailed description of the materials and methodology, as well as useful notes gathered from the GPlantS team's experience. We use rice seedlings as plants at this stage show high sensitivity to abiotic stresses. For the salt and cold stress assays we use hydroponic cultures, while for the drought assay plants are grown in soil and subjected to water withholding. All setups enable visual score determination and are suitable for sample collection along the imposition of stress. The proposed methodologies are simple and affordable to implement in most labs, allowing the discrimination of several rice genotypes at the molecular and phenotypic level.
authors: Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Genomics of Plant Stress Unit, Av. da República, 2780-157, Oeiras, Portugal.|IBET, Apartado 12, 2781-901, Oeiras, Portugal.
authors: Diego M
authors: DM
authors: Almeida
authors: Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Genomics of Plant Stress Unit, Av. da República, 2780-157, Oeiras, Portugal.|IBET, Apartado 12, 2781-901, Oeiras, Portugal.
authors: M Cecília
authors: MC
authors: Almadanim
authors: Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Genomics of Plant Stress Unit, Av. da República, 2780-157, Oeiras, Portugal.|IBET, Apartado 12, 2781-901, Oeiras, Portugal.
authors: Tiago
authors: T
authors: Lourenço
authors: Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Genomics of Plant Stress Unit, Av. da República, 2780-157, Oeiras, Portugal.|IBET, Apartado 12, 2781-901, Oeiras, Portugal.
authors: Isabel A
authors: IA
authors: Abreu
authors: Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Genomics of Plant Stress Unit, Av. da República, 2780-157, Oeiras, Portugal.|IBET, Apartado 12, 2781-901, Oeiras, Portugal.
authors: Nelson J M
authors: NJ
authors: Saibo
authors: Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Genomics of Plant Stress Unit, Av. da República, 2780-157, Oeiras, Portugal. mmolive@itqb.unl.pt.|IBET, Apartado 12, 2781-901, Oeiras, Portugal. mmolive@itqb.unl.pt.
authors: M Margarida
authors: MM
authors: Oliveira
mesh_terms: D003080:Cold Temperature; D055864:Droughts; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant / Q000187:drug effects; D012275:Oryza / Q000187:drug effects*; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified; D036226:Seedlings / Q000187:drug effects; D012965:Sodium Chloride / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D012965:Sodium Chloride
keywords: Abiotic stress; Cold stress; Drought; Hydroponic culture; Oryza sativa; Rice; Salt stress; Seedling stage