title: Differential gene expression in egg cells and zygotes suggests that the transcriptome is restructed before the first zygotic division in tobacco.
abstract: We applied suppression subtractive hybridization and mirror orientation selection to compare gene expression profiles of isolated Nicotiana tabacum cv SR1 zygotes and egg cells. Our results revealed that many differentially expressed genes in zygotes were transcribed de novo after fertilization. Some of these genes are critical to zygote polarity and pattern formation during early embryogenesis. This suggests that the transcriptome is restructed in zygote and that the maternal-to-zygotic transition happens before the first zygotic division, which is much earlier in higher plants than in animals. The expressed sequence tags used in this study provide a valuable resource for future research on fertilization and early embryogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Plant Developmental Biology, College of Life Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
authors.forename: Jue
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ning
authors.forename: Xiong-Bo
authors.initials: XB
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Liang-Huan
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Qu
authors.forename: Hai-Ping
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Xin
authors.forename: Ting-Ting
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Mengxiang
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D019521:Body Patterning; D002455:Cell Division; D016764:Cell Polarity; D047108:Embryonic Development; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D006824:Hybridization, Genetic; D009865:Oocytes; D014026:Nicotiana / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D014158:Transcription, Genetic; D015053:Zygote