Water stress response evaluation in Olea europaea L . cultivars

A multidisciplinary study was performed in six olive cultivars showing different responses to water stress, in order to select genotypes with a contrasting response to this stress. The effect of mycorrhizae in improving the response of olive cultivars to the condition of water deficit was also confirmed. For the two genotypes having the most contrasting response to the stress condition, a comparative analysis of gene expression profiles on a large scale was started through Next Generation Sequencing (RNASeq), in order to identify consortia of genes that play key roles in the response to water stress.