Re-establishment of desiccation tolerance by PEG in germinated Arabidopsis thaliana seeds

Mature seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana are desiccation tolerant, but they lose DT while progressing to germination. Yet, there is a small developmental window during which DT can be rescued by treatment with polyethylene glycol (PEG). We used microarrays to identify relevant genes in the re-establishment of desiccation tolerance by PEG. Germinated Arabidopsis seeds at the stage of radicle protrusion incubated in PEG for 72h and non-treated seeds at the same developmental stage were used for for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. Three biological replicates represented by pools of seeds bulk-harvested from at least two plants were used.