Determinants of late frosts resistance in Vitis vinifera

Supervisor: Prof.ssa Giannina Vizzotto (UNIUD)

Crop production needs to adapt to the changing environment by using different genotypes or more resource-efficient cropping systems. Despite the increase of average temperatures, extreme climatic occurrences, such as spring frost events, are more frequent. Warm winters may also affect buds’ frost resistance, as frequent thaw events in winter result in a loss of hardiness, increasing tree vulnerability to subsequent subfreezing temperatures and spring frost. Late frosts during spring time damage buds, flowers, and developing fruits and shoots can also be occasionally affected.

The goal of this project is to advance our understanding of the molecular and physiological mechanisms that link cold exposure to the expression of genes involved in cold resistance in Vitis vinifera, and to evaluate whether epigenetic mechanisms come into play in these responses.

Sugar content, amino acids and protein content will be measured during the progression of dormancy and dormancy release in buds of differently cold-resistant varieties of V. vinifera.

Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA) will be employed to monitor the progression of acclimation and deacclimation in buds, and to assess changes in gene expression in buds exposed to non-lethal low temperatures.

Following the identification of genes of interest using DTA, the research will proceed through the study of the epigenome of different V. vinifera varieties to evaluate if stress-responses are conserved during propagation.

Biography and Contacts

Valeria De Rosa was born in 1994 in San Daniele del Friuli, Italy. She graduated in Biotechnology in October 2016 and in Molecular Biotechnology in October 2018 with a final grade of 110/110 cum laude, both at the University of Udine. In 2018 she performed a 2 months master degree internship at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena (Germany), where she studied defense-related phytohormones in phytoplasma-infected Arabidopsis thaliana plants.

In November 2018 she started the doctoral course at the PhD school “Agriculture Science and Biotechnology” at the University of Udine.

Institutional e-mail: derosa.valeria@spes.uniud.it

Phone: +39 0432558633