MITOVIRUS-INFECTED AND NON INFECTED CHENOPODIUM QUINOA PLANTS SHOW DIFFERENT RESPONSES TO DROUGHT

The FAO policy strongly promotes quinoa as viable alternative crop, for its high nutritional properties, rich in protein, lipids, minerals and tocopherols, and for the adaptability to a wide range of marginal agricultural soils, including those with high salinity and those tending to drought. Recently, we provided evidence that the biodiversity of some C. quinoa lines is associated to the presence of a cryptic mitochondrial virus (CqMV1), giving them higher tolerance to virus infection and hydric stress. For better understanding of the role of CqMV, we compared two mitovirus-infected lines (Regalona and IPSP1) and two mitovirus-free lines (BO78 and BO25). We looked at the effect of some physiological parameters in abiotic stress condition (water stress) and some biotic stress (virus infections). We looked at the differential mitochondrially-enriched proteome of mitovirus-infected and mitovirus-free leaf extracts, showing some specific virus-caused down-regulation or up-regulation of a number of proteins. We discovered that quinoa hosting mitovirus activate some metabolic process that might help them to face drought. For example some proteins belonging to branched amino acid catabolism such as BCE2 and MCCB, and DELTA-OAT, reported to enhance multiple abiotic stress. Finally, we began the process of obtaining mitovirus-infected and mitovirus-free quasi-isogenic lines, focusing on reciprocal crosses between Regaloma and BO78, and evaluating the different expression of these genes in water stress condition.