Date of Award

8-2013

Degree Type

Report

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Plants, Soils, and Climate

Committee Chair(s)

John G. Carman

Committee

John G. Carman

Committee

Paul Johnson

Committee

John Stevens

Abstract

Apomixis is a complex trait of great interest to the agricultural community, as it has the potential to fix hybrid vigor in many agriculturally significant crops. Although apomixis has been studied extensively morphologically, the genetic and epigenetic factors responsible for apomixis are still very poorly understood. As no apomictic species has been sequenced and annotated, various low-cost tools and techniques are being utilized to begin profiling the trait. These include cross-species microarrays using probe masking, which deletes information from array probes that do not hybridize to the genomic DNA of the cross species. Despite their limitations, these tools are providing a strong informatics foundation for which future, more robust profiling procedures can be conducted.

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