Quantitative Expression Analysis through Transcript Profiling for Drought Stress in Cicer Arietinum L.

Chickpea, one amongst the major pulse crops, is grown mainly in the arid and semi-arid regions. Drought is one of the very important abiotic stresses that changes plant water status and limits plant growth and development. Expression profiles of genes involved in conferring stress tolerance could be utilized to get improved tolerant varieties. In present study, chickpea accessions having diverse levels of drought-tolerance (SBD 377 and PUSA 1103) were quantitatively analysed for variations in transcript profiles during drought stress. 8 gene sequences from drought stressed EST library were selected for gene expression studies. The sequences were subjected to homology search through a BLAST. Out of which 5 genes were found to be up regulated and 3 genes were down regulated with respect to expression of housekeeping genes Ubiquitin and Actin. The increase and decrease in gene expression varied from 0.22 % to 14.82 % fold. The maximum gene expression was expressed by DREB gene with the minimum gene expression by aquaporin like water channel protein with the relative fold decrease of 0.22 % during drought stress whereas the proline rich protein expressed 0.28 % relative fold decrease in gene expression. The findings have confirmed involvement of PUSA 1103 derived DREB gene, hypoxia conserved region protein gene, sulferodoxin protein gene, glutathione peroxidase phgpx gene and serine type protein genes in conferring drought stress to the plant. These gene(s) should be utilized for incorporation of drought tolerance in chickpea and other crop improvement programmes.