Characterization of the small RNA populations of developing Arabidopsis thaliana pollen.. Arabidopsis thaliana

Small RNA diversity and function has been widely characterized in various tissues of the sporophytic generation of the angiosperm model Arabidopsis thaliana. In contrast, there is limited knowledge about small RNA diversity and their roles in developing male gametophytes. We thus carried out small RNA sequencing on RNA isolated from four stages of developing Arabidopsis thaliana pollen. Overall design: Spores from 4 stages of pollen development (UNM: Uninucleate microspore – BCP: Bicellular pollen – TCP: Tricellular pollen – MP: Mature pollen) were isolated using a percoll gradient-based method (Honys and Twell, 2004) and the small RNA fraction for each sample was isolated and sequenced by Illumina technology. Reference: Honys, D. and Twell, D. (2004) Transcriptome analysis of haploid male gametophyte development in Arabidopsis. Genome Biol. 5/11/R85.