title: Comparison of good- and bad-quality cork: application of high-throughput sequencing of phellogenic tissue.
abstract: Cork is one of the most valuable non-wood forest products and plays an important role in Mediterranean economies. The production of high-quality cork is dependent on both genome and environment, posing constraints on the industry because an ever-growing amount of bad-quality cork (BQC) development has been observed. In order to identify genes responsible for production of cork of superior quality we performed a comparative analysis using the 454 pyrosequencing approach on phellogenic tissue of good- and bad-quality samples. The transcriptional profiling showed a high number of genes differentially expressed (8.48%) from which 78.8% displayed annotation. Genes more highly represented in BQC are involved in DNA synthesis, RNA processing, proteolysis, and transcription factors related to the abiotic stress response. Putative stomatal/lenticular-associated genes which may be responsible for the disadvantageous higher number of lenticular channels in BQC are also more highly represented. BQC also showed an elevated content of free phenolics. On the other hand, good-quality cork (GQC) can be distinguished by highly expressed genes encoding heat-shock proteins. Together the results provide valuable new information about the molecular events leading to cork formation and provide putative biomarkers associated with cork quality that can be useful in breeding programmes.
authors: Centro de Estudos Florestais, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, 1349-017, Portugal ritamiss@yahoo.com.
authors: Rita Teresa
authors: RT
authors: Teixeira
authors: Center for Biodiversity, Functional and Integrative Genomics (BioFIG); Science Faculty, University of Lisbon, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal.
authors: Ana Margarida
authors: AM
authors: Fortes
authors: Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Av. da República, EAN, 2780-157 Oeiras, Portugal Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal.
authors: Carla
authors: C
authors: Pinheiro
authors: Centro de Estudos Florestais, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, 1349-017, Portugal.
authors: Helena
authors: H
authors: Pereira
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D018519:Meristem / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D029963:Quercus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D016415:Sequence Alignment
chemical_list: D010940:Plant Proteins
keywords: Abiotic stress; Quercus suber; cork quality; lenticel; phellogen; transcriptomics