Poster: Vegetative development

Abs # 335: Expression profiling of developing cotton fibers during elongation and secondary cell wall synthesis

Presenter:	Sickler, Brad A, basickler@ucdavis.edu
Authors	Sickler, Brad A (A)   Arpat, A. Bulak  (A)   Wilkins, Thea A (A)
Affiliations:	(A): Department of Agronomy and Range Science, University of California Davis
Web Site:	http://cfg.ucdavis.edu

Cotton fibers offer a unique opportunity to query the transcriptome at the single-cell level to gain novel insight into fundamental biological processes in plants. Cotton fibers develop in four distinct phases: initiation, rapid polar elongation, secondary cell wall synthesis and maturation. In order to study gene expression at the genomic level during elongation and secondary cell wall synthesis, oligonucleotide microarrays were employed. RNA was isolated from fibers in 7 different time points beginning prior to peak fiber expansion, continuing through termination of fiber expansion and ending at peak cellulose synthesis. The arrays contained ~25,000 oligonucleotides representing ~12,200 genes designed from a fiber EST database during peak cell expansion. Quality control consisted of self-hybridizations and correlating data from earlier RT-PCT and microarray experiments as well as 71 experimental controls on the array. The data resulting from functional binning and further analyses of the microarrays are proving to be valuable tools in further identifying the genetics behind fiber cell morphology.