A transcriptional roadmap to wood formation.
The large vascular meristem of poplar trees with its highly organized secondary xylem enables the boundaries between different developmental zones to be easily distinguished. This property of wood-forming tissues allowed us to determine a unique tissue-specific transcript profile for a well defined developmental gradient. RNA was prepared from different developmental stages of xylogenesis for DNA microarray analysis by using a hybrid aspen unigene set consisting of 2,995 expressed sequence tags. The analysis revealed that the genes encoding lignin and cellulose biosynthetic enzymes, as well as a number of transcription factors and other potential regulators of xylogenesis, are under strict developmental stage-specific transcriptional regulation.
Hertzberg
M
M
Umeå Plant Science Center, Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 901 83 Umeå, Sweden.
Aspeborg
H
H
Schrader
J
J
Andersson
A
A
Erlandsson
R
R
Blomqvist
K
K
Bhalerao
R
R
Uhlén
M
M
Teeri
T T
TT
Lundeberg
J
J
Sundberg
B
B
Nilsson
P
P
Sandberg
G
G
D002473:Cell Wall / Q000378:metabolism; D002482:Cellulose / Q000096:biosynthesis; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D017343:Genes, Plant; D008031:Lignin / Q000096:biosynthesis; D018519:Meristem / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D014158:Transcription, Genetic; D014197:Trees / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism; D014934:Wood
D002482:Cellulose; D008031:Lignin