Analysis of tall fescue ESTs representing different abiotic stresses, tissue types and developmental stages.
BACKGROUND
Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb) is a major cool season forage and turf grass species grown in the temperate regions of the world. In this paper we report the generation of a tall fescue expressed sequence tag (EST) database developed from nine cDNA libraries representing tissues from different plant organs, developmental stages, and abiotic stress factors. The results of inter-library and library-specific in silico expression analyses of these ESTs are also reported.


RESULTS
A total of 41,516 ESTs were generated from nine cDNA libraries of tall fescue representing tissues from different plant organs, developmental stages, and abiotic stress conditions. The Festuca Gene Index (FaGI) has been established. To date, this represents the first publicly available tall fescue EST database. In silico gene expression studies using these ESTs were performed to understand stress responses in tall fescue. A large number of ESTs of known stress response gene were identified from stressed tissue libraries. These ESTs represent gene homologues of heat-shock and oxidative stress proteins, and various transcription factor protein families. Highly expressed ESTs representing genes of unknown functions were also identified in the stressed tissue libraries.


CONCLUSIONS
FaGI provides a useful resource for genomics studies of tall fescue and other closely related forage and turf grass species. Comparative genomic analyses between tall fescue and other grass species, including ryegrasses (Lolium sp.), meadow fescue (F. pratensis) and tetraploid fescue (F. arundinacea var glaucescens) will benefit from this database. These ESTs are an excellent resource for the development of simple sequence repeat (SSR) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) PCR-based molecular markers.
Mian
M A Rouf
MA
Forage Improvement Division, The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, 2510 Sam Noble Parkway, Ardmore, OK 73402, USA. mian.3@osu.edu
Zhang
Yan
Y
Wang
Zeng-Yu
ZY
Zhang
Ji-Yi
JY
Cheng
Xiaofei
X
Chen
Lei
L
Chekhovskiy
Konstantin
K
Dai
Xinbin
X
Mao
Chunhong
C
Cheung
Foo
F
Zhao
Xuechun
X
He
Ji
J
Scott
Angela D
AD
Town
Christopher D
CD
May
Gregory D
GD
D018744:DNA, Plant / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D004780:Environment, Controlled; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D035264:Flowers / Q000378:metabolism; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D015723:Gene Library; D006358:Hot Temperature; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000378:metabolism; D018520:Plant Shoots / Q000378:metabolism; D018547:Plant Stems / Q000378:metabolism; D006109:Poaceae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D036226:Seedlings / Q000378:metabolism; D014867:Water / Q000378:metabolism
D018744:DNA, Plant; D010940:Plant Proteins; D014867:Water