Project description:A major effort is underway to study the natural variation within the model plant species, Arabidopsis thaliana. Much of this effort is focused on genome resequencing, however the translation of genotype to phenotype will be largely effected through variations within the transcriptomes at the sequence and expression levels. To examine the cross-talk between natural variation in genomes and transcriptomes, we have examined the transcriptomes of three divergent A. thaliana accessions using tiling arrays. Combined with genome resequencing efforts, we were able to adjust the tiling array datasets to account for polymorphisms between the accessions and therefore gain a more accurate comparison of the transcriptomes. The corrected results for the transcriptomes allowed us to correlate higher gene polymorphism with greater variation in transcript level among the accessions. Our results demonstrate the utility of combining genomic data with tiling arrays to assay non-reference accession transcriptomes.
Project description:A major effort is underway to study the natural variation within the model plant species, Arabidopsis thaliana. Much of this effort is focused on genome resequencing, however the translation of genotype to phenotype will be largely effected through variations within the transcriptomes at the sequence and expression levels. To examine the cross-talk between natural variation in genomes and transcriptomes, we have examined the transcriptomes of three divergent A. thaliana accessions using tiling arrays. Combined with genome resequencing efforts, we were able to adjust the tiling array datasets to account for polymorphisms between the accessions and therefore gain a more accurate comparison of the transcriptomes. The corrected results for the transcriptomes allowed us to correlate higher gene polymorphism with greater variation in transcript level among the accessions. Our results demonstrate the utility of combining genomic data with tiling arrays to assay non-reference accession transcriptomes.
Project description:A fundamental question in biology is how gene expression is regulated to give rise to a phenotype. However, transcriptional variability is rarely considered and could influence the relationship between genotype and phenotype. It is known in unicellular organisms that gene expression is often noisy rather than uniform and has been proposed to be beneficial when environmental conditions are unpredictable. However, little is known about transcriptional variability in multicellular organisms. Using transcriptomic approaches, we analysed gene expression variability over a 24 hours time-course between individual Arabidopsis thaliana plants growing in stable conditions. We identified hundreds of genes that exhibit high inter-individual variability and found that many are involved in environmental responses. We also identified factors that might facilitate gene expression variability, such as gene size, the number of transcription factors regulating a gene and the chromatin environment. These results will bring a new light into the impact of transcriptional variability in gene expression regulation in plants.
Project description:Histone 3 lysine 4 and histone 3 lysine 9 methylation in wild type and ddm1 Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings. The purpose of the chromatin immunoprecipitation/microarray (ChIP/chip) experiment is to determine which regions of a genome are enriched for a particular histone modification in a single Arabidopsis thanliana genotype. Chromatin immunoprecipitation with antibodies raised against dimethyl histone-H3 lysine-9 (H3mK9) or dimethyl histone-H3 lysine-4 (H3mK4) is performed on a selected genotype. This purified DNA from each immunoprecipiation (mH3K9, mH3K4, no antibody control) is used for random amplification to increase the quantity of DNA for microarray hybridization. The amplified DNA from each experimental sample is then labeled with Cy5 and hybridized against total input DNA from the corresponding genotype, labeled in Cy3. In a single hybridization, the total input DNA serves as a baseline and is compared to the immunoprecipitated samples. Ratios of normalized signal intensities were calculated to identify enrichment of a particular sequence after immunoprecipitation, in comparison to the total input DNA. Dye swap analysis is carried out to take account of experimental variation by repeating the hybridization with identical samples labeled with Cy3 and Cy5, respectively. This SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below.
Project description:DNA methylation in wild type bolting plants, wild type seedlings, and ddm1 seedlings. The purpose of the McrBC methylation microarray assay is to determine which regions of a genome are methylated versus those that are unmethylated in a single Arabidopsis thanliana genotype. McrBC is a methylation-sensitive enzyme that restricts DNA only at purine-Cmethyl half sites when separated between 50bp and 3kb. A designated amount of DNA from a particular genotype is sheared to a size range of 1kb-10kb using nebulization. We restrict half of the nebulized DNA with McrBC, and the methylated fraction is then removed from the unmethylated fraction through gel purification of DNA fragments greater than 1kb.* The remaining nebulized DNA is subjected to the same gel purification scheme, but with no McrBC treatment. In a single hybridization, the untreated sample is labeled with Cy5 and the McrBC-treated sample with Cy3. Thus, after labeling and microarray hybridization, the ratio of normalized Cy5 to normalized Cy3 represents the relative methylation at the sequence represented by the spot on the microarray. Dye swap analysis is carried out to take account of experimental variation by repeating the hybridization with identical samples labeled with Cy3 and Cy5, respectively. This SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below.