The Microvine, a dwarf model for perennial plant physiology and genetics

Microvines are modified "Arabidopsis-like" grapevines with small sizes and reduced life cycle, which are key to applying a number of molecular techniques on grapevines, in particular genome editing. Prof. Laurent Torregrosa, the inventor of the microvines, will present them and show some applications. See as an example a recent application here.

Laurent Torregrosa is full Professor at Institut Agronomique de Montpellier and member of the LESPE research center. He is Head of the Institute of Higher Studies in Vine and Wine Sciences, President of the GiESCO, an international initiative about viticulture (https://www.giesco.org/). He is an expert on grapevine genetics, genomics, and biotech. In the last years, he coordinated several ANR-funded projects to study the response of grapevine to heat and map QTLs of adaptation to warming. He is currently coordinating two ANR-funded projects to identify key regulators of the adaptation to water deficit by GWAS (Genome Wide Association Study) and to characterize the tolerance to drought of new disease-resistant varieties and the development of methods and resources for breeding. More at https://www6.montpellier.inrae.fr/lepse_eng/Staff/Permanent-staff/Torregrosa-Laurent 

[Host: Gabriel Marais, Plant Evolution - PlantEvol]