Response of Tall Fescue (Festuca arundinacea) and epichloe endophyte to heat stress - Preliminary experiment

The main objective of this project is to identify Epichloe endophyte-induced alterations in tall fescue transcriptome under normal and heat-stressed conditions to determine the genes and transcriptional networks responsible for enhanced heat stress tolerance in tall fescue. Our approach is to use 3' mRNA sequencing to compare the transcriptomes of tall fescue plants infected with Epichloe endophyte under normal and heat stress conditions. This study is the preliminary 3' mRNA sequencing experiment of the main project.