Transcriptomes of imbibed and dry soybean embryonic axes stored for 3, 19, and 22 years

We looked for differences in the transcriptomes of imbibing soybean axes that were either recently harvested and expected to germinate, or aged in dry storage and expected to not germinate. It is unclear what of the many changes that occur in seeds in the dry state might be responsible for the loss of germination capacity. Since we previously found the dry transcriptomes in fresh and aged seeds were not significantly different, we decided to see whether different metabolic pathways get activated in aged seeds upon imbibiition.

我们针对两类吸胀大豆胚轴（imbibing soybean axes）的转录组（transcriptome）差异展开探究：一类为新近收获、具备正常萌发能力的样本，另一类为经干燥贮藏老化、丧失萌发能力的样本。目前学界尚未明确，干燥状态下种子发生的诸多变化中，究竟哪些因素会导致种子萌发能力的丧失。此前我们的研究发现，新鲜种子与老化种子的干燥转录组并无显著差异，因此本研究旨在探明老化种子在吸胀过程中是否会激活不同的代谢通路（metabolic pathways）。