Abstract:
Jute (Corchorus spp.) is the second most important fibre producing plant in the world. It is a very season specific crop and requires certain temperature and moisture conditions for growth. To imporve the quality of this agronomicaly improtant fibre yielding crop, conventional breeding between species (C. capsularis and C. olitorius) was attempted and failed due to sexual incompatibility of the species. Hence, study of jute at the molecular level is of great importance. To make jute tolerant to environmental stresses, the study of genes and transcriptional factors involved in stress-tolerance mechanism cannot be overemphasized. In this study, vacuolar proton pump ATPase subunit F, which functions as central stalk of a multi-subuint complex protein vacuolar ATPase, was found to be responsive in dehydration stress in jute (Corchorus olitorius). Expression study reveals that the expression of V-ATPase subunit F gene is induced by salt, low temperature and drought stress and variation of expression is observed in time dependent manner. This finding will enable us to attempt the production of jute under dehydrated condition and resurrect the golden age of our jute fibre.
