Characterization of small heat shock protein genes (sHSP) in durum wheat

The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that by 2100 in the Mediterranean area we will assist to an increase of the average temperatures of about 2 to 5°C, and to a decrease of the annual precipitation (about 4-27%). Therefore, the current challenge of basic and applied plant research is to shed light on the molecular mechanisms guiding thermotolerance and heat stress response. Small Heat Shock Proteins (sHSP) belongs to a multigenic family exceptionally widespread and variable in plants. They have a crucial role in thermotolerance therefore the characterization of the corresponding genes in Triticum durum is a premise for understanding the specific effects of individual sHSP in stress response in durum wheat. In order to investigate the implication of sHSPs in thermotolerance we focused our interest in two nuclear-encoded organellar classes of sHSP, in particular those localized in the chloroplast and in the mitochondria since they are known to interact with the Photosystem II upon heat stress and to increase their transcript level in thermotolerant genotype respectively. In the present work the isolation and the genomic characterization of two plastidic and one mitochondrial sHSP, will be discuss.