|
October 9, 2008
Source:
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
A new tool for investigating the
rice genome has been developed by researchers at
UC Davis led by Pamela
Ronald, professor of plant pathology. The inexpensive,
publicly-available rice DNA microarray covers nearly all the
45,000 genes in the rice genome. Details are published this week
in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.
In higher organisms, such as humans or rice plants, each cell
type express different genes at different times. Scientists have
developed high-throughput methods to examine these gene
expression profiles using "DNA Microarrays," thousands of
fragments of DNA fixed to a glass slide. DNA microarrays can be
used to figure out which genes are important for responding to a
stimulus or tolerating stresses.
Ronald and her colleagues used the new rice microarray to
investigate gene expression changes when plants are grown in the
light versus the dark. They then combined this gene expression
data with biochemical pathway data to correctly predict the
function of genes whose role was previously unknown. The newly
identified genes carry out light-related biochemical processes
such as photosynthesis and photorespiration.
The methods and array developed in this paper will aid
researchers in identifying the function of the 45,000 rice
genes, only a few of which have so far been characterized,
Ronald said. The group also has developed a web-based program
that allows the user to compare gene expression profiles across
multiple rice microarray platforms, which will further
accelerate this research.
Refinement of Light-Responsive Transcript Lists Using Rice
Oligonucleotide Arrays: Evaluation of Gene-Redundancy
Jung K-H, Dardick C, Bartley LE, Cao P, Phetsom J, et al.
(2008)
PLoS ONE 3(10): e3337. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003337
|
|
