Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

First Advisor

Manohar Chakrabarti

Second Advisor

Teresa Patricia Feria Arroyo

Third Advisor

Nabanita Chattopadhyay

Abstract

The global impact and reliance on cereal crops, and sorghum in particular, is paramount for worldwide food security and for the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people. The detrimental effects of salt stress on crop plants and the huge economic losses it causes by affecting agricultural output worldwide is a devastating issue with huge impacts, which have prompted research to combat salinity in numerous ways. Understanding how cereals respond to the negative effects of salt stress is crucial for enhancing their salt tolerance. In this study of sorghum, we used a 3’-end RNA sequencing approach to elucidate major salt stress responses, which revealed important regulatory roles of hormone-associated pathways, stress-responsive transcription factors, and histones after 1-hour and 6-hours of salt stress treatments. Our insights into the pathways affected by salt stress, as well as of the gene expression regulation of salt stress-responsive genes at play, can be used to improve the salt tolerance of sorghum and other cereal crops. Our distinct incorporation of a comparative analysis between the response of sorghum to salt stress and its responses to heat and drought stresses further expand the understating of unique and shared molecular defense mechanisms in the context of sorghum under abiotic stress. The findings of this thesis lay the foundation for future functional studies that will be the next step in the development of abiotic stress resistant cereal crops.

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Copyright 2025 Joshwa A. Gandy. All Rights Reserved. https://proquest.com/docview/3275322085

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