ARS | Publication request: CONSERVED AND DIVERGENT TRANSCRIPTIONAL REGULATION OF SEED GERMINATION AND SEEDLING GROWTH IN BARLEY AND ARABIDOPSIS

Submitted to: Annual International Plant & Animal Genome Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: January 15, 2005
Publication Date: January 15, 2005
Citation: An, Y., Lin, L., Tian, S., Kaeppler, S. Conserved and divergent transcriptional regulation of seed germination and seedling growth in barley and arabidopsis. XIII International Plant & Animal Genome Conference. p. P663.

Technical Abstract: Seed germination and seedling growth is a complex biological process requiring closely coordinated expression of numerous genes and pathways. We surveyed steady mRNA accumulation profiles of more than 22,000 barley genes over the course of barley germination and seedling growth. Tissues representing seven distinct developmental stages during germination and seedling growth were examined. We observed that a large number of genes show significantly increased or decreased accumulation of their corresponding mRNAs during seed germination and seedling growth. Many of the responsive genes are involved in sub-cellular localization, cellular communication/signal transduction, cell cycle and DNA processing, cellular transportation, energy, protein synthesis, and transcription. It reflects that many diverse biochemical and cellular processes participate in grain germination and seedling growth. Consistent with roles of ABA and GA in germination, many ABA inducible genes show dramatic reduction in the steady mRNA level while expression of many GA inducible genes increases significantly. In addition, genes with conserved and divergent expression patterns in barley and Arabidopsis germination were identified. The preservation of the conserved expression patterns since divergence of Arabidopsis and barley from the same ancestral plant species suggests that the genes may be subject to functional constraints and play roles in shared features in their seed germination and seedling growth. The genes with divergent expression pattern may be partly attributed to the distinct characteristic of barley and Arabidopsis germination and seedling growth.