Published Paper Details:

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) is one of the most promising biomass crops for the production of biofuel these days because it is rich in natural diversity, and has adapted to a large portion of the global continents and sub-continents. Despite the increasing importance as a dedicated energy crop, we know little about the basic biology underlying the agronomic traits related to feedstock production. Compared to other crops or high-value forage plants, the genetic and genomic resources suitable for switchgrass molecular breeding, biotechnology, and molecular biology research are still lagging far behind. Our aim to develop functional genomic tools for switchgrass. Switchgrass has large genome and it is not sequenced. Hence it is necessary to develop new molecular markers which will accelerate breeding. Activation tagging involves mutation in the gene which is mutated by transposon. Switchgrass has polyploidy hence it is necessary to have a mutation by overexpressing gene. This can be done by activation tagging which involves use of enhancer in transposon so it can cause overexpression of gene at the site of insertion which can result in morphological or physiological changes.