Project description:Plants grow continuously and undergo numerous changes in their vegetative morphology and physiology during their life span. The molecular basis of these changes is largely unknown. To provide a more comprehensive picture of shoot development in Arabidopsis, microarray analysis was used to profile the mRNA content of shoot apices of different ages, as well as leaf primordia and fully-expanded leaves from 6 different positions on the shoot, in early-flowering and late-flowering genotypes. This extensive dataset provides a new and unexpectedly complex picture of shoot development in Arabidopsis. At any given time, the pattern of gene expression is different in every leaf on the shoot, and reflects the activity at least 6 developmental programs. Three of these are specific to individual leaves (leaf maturation, leaf aging, leaf senescence), two occur at the level of the shoot apex (vegetative phase change, floral induction), and one involves the entire shoot (shoot aging). Our results demonstrate that vegetative development is a much more dynamic process that previously imagined, and provide new insights into the underlying mechanism of this process.
Project description:Microarray analysis of wild type plants and plants with reduced (ago1-27 and se-1) or increased miR156 levels (se-1 p35S:MIR156). Shoot apices were dissected from 20-day-old, short-day grown plants.
Project description:We were interested in changes in small RNA abundance changes in response to developmental transitions in Arabidopsis thaliana shoots, with special focus on vegetative phase change. We specifically wanted to separate the temporal changes in gene expression that result from vegetative phase change and those from flowering. Because of the close timing between the juvenile-to-adult and adult-to-reproductive developmental transitions in Arabidopsis grown under long day conditions, we used the late-flowering genotype FRI;FLC developed by the lab of Richard Amasino by introgressing the FRI allele from Sf-2 into the Col-0 genetic background, which is fri;FLC. For the early flowering genotype, we used FRI;flc-3, also developed by the Amasino lab by EMS-mutagenizing FRI;FLC, identifying early flowering mutants, and backcrossing multiple times to eliminate other EMS-induced mutations. The onset of vegetative phase change in FRI;FLC and FRI;flc-3 under our growth conditions was identical, but the progression was slower in FRI;FLC. By sequencing small RNAs from shoot apices at different time points and fully-expanded leaves at different positions on the shoot and comparing the results between the two genotypes, we were able to obtain a clear picture of changes in small RNA abundance in response to vegetative phase change and flowering in Arabidopsis. For the small RNA samples, we performed two replicates using two different indices in the 5'-adapter and ran each replicate pair on the same sequencing lane. For the cotyledon and leaf samples we only performed one replicate using the same index for all samples because we obtained significantly different results with the two adapters used for the shoot apices, preventing us from using them as true replicates.
Project description:To determine whether IYO is not only necessary but also sufficient to activate transcription of developmental programs, we compared the transcriptome of shoot apices from 35S::IYO-GFP plants to that of 35S::GFP plants at the time of inflorescence emergence. Our results strongly suggest that IYO activates the transcription of key developmental regulators driving differentiation. Shoot apices RNA sample is a pool from RNAs from four independent experiments, and the RNA from each experiment was a pool of RNAs extracted from 12 individuals Arabidopsis 35S:IYO-GFP or 35S:GFP plants.
Project description:To determine whether IYO is not only necessary but also sufficient to activate transcription of developmental programs, we compared the transcriptome of shoot apices from 35S::IYO-GFP plants to that of 35S::GFP plants at the time of inflorescence emergence. Our results strongly suggest that IYO activates the transcription of key developmental regulators driving differentiation.
Project description:Leaf development has been monitored chiefly by following anatomical markers. Analysis of transcriptome dynamics during leaf maturation revealed multiple expression patterns that rise or fall with age or that display age specific peaks. These were used to formulate a digital differentiation index (DDI), based on a set of selected markers with informative expression during leaf ontogeny. The leaf-based DDI reliably predicted the developmental state of leaf samples from diverse sources and was independent of mitotic cell division transcripts or propensity of the specific cell type. To calibrate and test the DDI a series of Arabidopsis shoot development was used (Efroni et al, 2008) Experiment Overall Design: Four samples from different stages of shoot and leaf development taken from plants grown at short days (10 hours light at 20C), starting from 5 days after sowing (DAS) apices to 35 DAS fully expanded leaves. RNA was hybridized to affymatrix ATH1 arrays and done in duplicates.