Microarray analysis of vegetative phase change in maize
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ABSTRACT: Vegetative phase change is the developmental transition from the juvenile phase to the adult phase during which a plant becomes competent for sexual reproduction. Gain of ability to flower is often accompanied by changes in patterns of differentiation in newly forming vegetative organs. In maize, juvenile leaves differ from adult leaves in morphology, anatomy, and cell wall composition. Whereas the normal sequence of juvenile followed by adult is repeated with every sexual generation, this sequence can be altered in maize by the isolation and culture of the shoot apex from an adult phase plant; an âadultâ meristem so treated reverts to forming juvenile vegetative organs. To investigate the molecular differences between the juvenile and adult phases in maize comparisons among two juvenile samples, leaf 4 and culture-derived leaf 3 or 4, and an adult sample (leaf 9) were made using cDNA microarrays. All samples were leaf primordia at plastochron 6. A gene was scored as âphase specificâ if it was up- (or down-) regulated in both juvenile samples compared to the adult sample with at least a twofold-change in gene expression at P-value less than or equal to 0.005. Some 221 ESTs up-regulated in juvenile and 28 ESTs up-regulated in adult were identified. Altered patterns of expression of selected ESTs in the phase change mutants Tp2, d1 and gl15 further confirmed these genes as being phase-specific and allowed us to position these genes in the known genetic hierarchy regulating phase change. Keywords: Transcript profiling among seed-derived juvenile leaf 4 and adult leaf 9 and culture-rejuvenated leaf 3 or 4 in maize To identify juvenile or adult specific ESTs, total RNA from leaf primordia at plastochron 6 (P6) was isolated from leaves 4 (L4) and 9 (L9) from seed-derived plants and leaf 3 or 4 (RL3/4) from culture-derived plants. For each of six biological replications, each of the three pairwise comparisons of P6-staged leaf primordia from L4, L9 and RL3/4 was made on one slide. With six biological replications and three slides per replication (L4 vs. L9, L9 vs. RL3/4, RL3/4 vs. L4), this replicated loop design used a total of 18 slides. To ensure dye balance, each of the 18 target samples was measured once with Cy3 labeling and once with Cy5 labeling.
ORGANISM(S): Zea mays
SUBMITTER: Patrick Schnable
PROVIDER: E-GEOD-9430 | biostudies-arrayexpress |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress
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