RNA-Seq of Arabidopsis seeds before and after priming treatments

Seed priming is a commercially used technique for improving seed performance including germination. However, the treatment sometimes reduces seed longevity as a side effect, limiting the storable period of the seeds. The goal of this study is to understand the gene expressions involved in the loss of seed longevity during priming. Est-1 is an accession of Arabidopsis thaliana that retained relatively longer longevity after priming compared with a standard laboratory accession Col-0. Among 279 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from a cross between Col-0 and Est-1, 25 RILs that showed relatively longer longevity were bulked as bulked-long RILs (BL) and 25 RILs that showed relatively shorter longevity were bulked as bulked-short RILs (BS). We performed RNA-Seq of these seeds before and after priming treatments (CN: non-primed Col-0, EN: non-primed Est-1, CP: primed Col-0, EP: primed Est-1, BL: primed bulked-long, and BS: primed bulked-short).