Eileen Kosola

This project examines how cold acclimation affects diel regulation of gene expression among physiologically similar Brassica rapa genotypes. Yellow Sarson cultivars within B. rapa are broadly referred to as “rapeseeds.” As a major crop worldwide, they compose roughly 13 percent of global oilseed production, and are responsible for over a third of non-soybean oilseed products. However, cold stress can strongly inhibit their health and productivity. I aim to uncover cold-responsive expression patterns that may underlie mechanisms of cold tolerance. Given a set of genes that have differential expression patterns during cold acclimation, I classified these genes by their phase (time of peak expression). I identified genes within this set that have altered phases in response to cold, then ran Gene Ontology analysis on this subset to screen for shared biological pathways. I expected that genotypes would have similar phase changes and enriched pathways during cold stress due to their similar physiology. I also identified phase changes among multi copy genes (paralogs) to better understand how expression pattern dynamics modulate cold responses in rapeseed varieties.