Freezing stress in wild and cultivated chickpea
We have exposed wild (cold-tolerant) and cultivated (cold-sensitive) chickpeas to a freezing treatment, with and without a cold acclimation period prior to freezing, and followed by a recovery period and have sequenced RNA, via Illumina paired-end sequencing, to detect transcriptional changes in response to each stage. We developed an F2 population that is derived from a cross between the cold-tolerant wild genotype and cold-sensitive cultivar and screened them for their level of tolerance to freezing temperatures. The 17 most extreme individuals from each end of the distribution of cold response ratings were selected (i.e. most tolerant and most sensitive) to form two pools. DNA from individuals in each bulked sample was pooled and sequenced via GBS. Sequence data from the bulked samples, along with DNA from the parents of the F2 population, was used for a QTL-seq analysis to identify genomic regions associated with freezing tolerance.