Transcriptome analysis of Arabidopsis siliques reveals genes with essential roles in fruit development and maturation

Fruits protect the developing seeds and actively contribute to seed dispersion. Furthermore, fruit and seed development are highly synchronized and require exchange of information between the mother plant and the developing generations. To explore the mechanisms controlling fruit formation and maturation, we performed a transcriptomic analysis on the valve tissue of the Arabidopsis thaliana silique, using the RNAseq strategy. In doing so, we have generated a dataset of differentially regulated genes that will help to elucidate the molecular mechanisms that underpin the initial phase of fruit growth, and subsequently trigger fruit maturation. The robustness of our dataset has been tested by functional genomic studies. Using a reverse genetics approach, we selected 10 differentially expressed genes and explored the consequences of their disruption for both silique growth and senescence. We found that genes contained in our dataset play essential roles in different stages of silique development and maturation, indicating that our transcriptome-based gene list is a powerful tool for the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms controlling fruit formation in Arabidopsis thaliana.