Evaluating epigenetic and transcriptomic adaptations to climate change in Brasicca napus (oilseed rape)

The aim of this project is to provide a systems-level molecular and metabolic understanding of the impact of heat stress on yield of B. napus for UK-specific varieties. Such a systems biology approach will be achieved through monitoring DNAm and global transcriptome profiling in tandem with metabolic analysis of oilseed rape as a result of heat stress. The main objectives of the project are:
1. Investigating the effect of heat stress on two UK-grown lines on pollination fertility and seed quality at pre- and post-anthesis periods of B. napus.
2. Identifying site-specific modification of DNAm and potential genomic imprinting in the B. napus genome susceptible to heat stress
3. Performing a transcriptome profiling using RNA-Seq, to identify key differentially expressed genes as a result of heat stress.
4. Integrating the epigenetic profiling and the corresponding gene expression through the development of a gene regulatory network using findings from obj.2&3, in order to assess the epigenetic mediation effect on pollination fertility and seed quality measures.
5. Developing a machine learning model which will predict the future impact of heat stress on pollination fertility and seed quality. Using the decision tree models, correlation between methylation sites and gene expression will be assessed. Next, sites will be fed to the decision tree as input in order to rank these in order of importance, and ultimately estimate metabolic profiles and phenotypic traits (i.e. pollination fertility and seed quality) as output variables.