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Abstract Detail



Developmental and Structural Section

Jones, Daniel [1], Anderson, Sarah [2], Johnson, Cameron [2], Chen, Meiling [4], Conrad, Liza [2], Gou, Xiaoping [5], Russell, Scott [1], Sundaresan, V. [2].

Differential gene expression in the male and female germ lineage of Oryza sativa ssp. japonica.

Reproduction in Angiosperms revolves around a highly reduced gametophytic stage of the life cycle with the male germ lineage (sperm cells) and the female germ lineage (egg cell) as the founder cells of the next generation. Understanding the different expressional landscapes of these cell types could provide valuable information in regards to the initial control of zygotic development in plants. In this study, RNAseq was used to determine the transcriptome of male and female germ cells in Oryza sativa ssp. japonica. Of the resulting 158,341,371 raw reads, 122,772,819 were mapped to the most current rice genome (MSU rice version 7) using TopHat (v2.0.5) with Bowtie (v2.0.0.7); whereas 64,231,553 mapped uniquely. Of these, 27,255,000 reads mapped uniquely to exonic regions of the genome, identifying 34,420 genes with uniquely mapping reads. Out of the total mapped genes, 16,490 sequences were identified as genes significantly differentially expressed using DESeq (v1.10.1) at 10% FDR. Among these differentially expressed genes, 9,473 were found to be enriched in the egg cell and 7,947 genes were significantly enriched in the sperm cell. The male and female gametes displayed a highly disparate Pearson’s coefficient of correlation (r) of 0.203 with a standard deviation of 0.018. The zygote expectedly showed greater correlation with the unfertilized egg cell (r=0.851±SD 0.092) than the pre-fertilization sperm cell (r=0.300±SD 0.070). That the sperm cell displayed a higher Pearson’s coefficient of correlation with the zygote provides evidence that paternal influence is above negligible levels, which confirms that the unique products of sperm cells are retained during the period between plasmogamy and karyogamy and may provide mRNA that may affect early embryogenetic imprinting. Although egg cell selective genes numbered 1778 before fertilization, there were nearly as many, 1604 genes, that were active selectively in the sperm cells—a difference of only 174. As the sperm cells occupy a volume differential exceeding 1500:1, this represents an unexpected richness of expression. Thus male and female germ lineages in rice each provide highly differential transcriptomes, supporting that each sex within these founder cells provides distinct transcriptional complements at fertilization.

Broader Impacts:


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1 - University of Oklahoma, Department of Microbiology And Plant Biology, 770 Van Vleet Oval, Norman, OK, 73019-6155, USA
2 - University of California, Department of Plant Biology, Davis, CA, 95616, USA
3 - University of California, Department of Plant Biology, Davis, CA, 95616, USA
4 - Xiamen University, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen, 361005, China
5 - Lanzhou University, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou, China

Keywords:
reproduction
Germline
transcriptomics.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Sections
Session: 26
Location: Jasperwood/Riverside Hilton
Date: Tuesday, July 30th, 2013
Time: 10:30 AM
Number: 26002
Abstract ID:1059
Candidate for Awards:None


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