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Molecular Biology and Physiology of the Resurrection Glacial Relic Haberlea Rhodopensis

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Biotechnology of Neglected and Underutilized Crops

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Abstract

Haberlea rhodopensis is a glacial relic with impressive tolerance to desiccation and freezing stress. It is mainly known as an ornamental plant and its other potential uses were largely neglected. Transcriptome analyses by next generation sequencing and cDNA–AFLP technologies identified transcription factors, stress-related and novel genes that could contribute to drought tolerance. These recent molecular studies have raised possibilities of gene discovery for crop improvement and established H. rhodopensis as one of the models to study desiccation tolerance. Furthermore, the abundant secondary metabolites of H. rhodopensis are rich sources of compounds with medicinal properties. Extracts from Haberlea possess radioprotective, anticlastogenic and antioxidant activities and can stimulate regeneration of human fibroblasts in vitro. All this has rejuvenated the interest in H. rhodopensis and indicated potential applications of this species in biology and medicine.

Maria Benina and Veselin Petrov authors contributed equally to this work.

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Abbreviations

AFLP:

Amplified fragment length polymorphism

ELIPs:

Early-light inducible proteins/genes

ESC:

Expressed sequence contigs

GABA:

Îł-aminobutyric acid

LEA:

Late embryogenesis-abundant proteins

NGS:

Next generation sequencing

ROS:

Reactive oxygen species

RWC:

Relative water content

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by EC FP7 (project Biosupport 245588), University of Plovdiv Research Fund (project BF006), NSF of Bulgaria, project DO2-1068, and the Swiss Enlargement Contribution in the framework of the Bulgarian-Swiss Research Programme, SNSF project No. IZEBZ0_143003/1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Physiology and Molecular Biology, University of Plovdiv, 24 Tsar Assen Str, Plovdiv, 4000, Bulgaria

    Maria Benina, Veselin Petrov, Valentina Toneva & Tsanko Gechev

  2. University of Forestry, 10 St.Kl.Ochridsky Blvd, Sofia, 1756, Bulgaria

    Atanaska Teneva

Authors
  1. Maria Benina
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  2. Veselin Petrov
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  3. Valentina Toneva
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  4. Atanaska Teneva
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  5. Tsanko Gechev
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Correspondence to Tsanko Gechev .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Agricultural, University of Helsinki, 5 Latokartanonkaari Room C 130, Helsinki, 00014, Finland

    Shri Mohan Jain

  2. Dept. Agricultural & Food Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 721302, India

    S. Dutta Gupta

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Benina, M., Petrov, V., Toneva, V., Teneva, A., Gechev, T. (2013). Molecular Biology and Physiology of the Resurrection Glacial Relic Haberlea Rhodopensis . In: Jain, S., Dutta Gupta, S. (eds) Biotechnology of Neglected and Underutilized Crops. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5500-0_4

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