Identification of genes involved in secondary cell wall development in the hypocotyls of short day grown Arabidopsis

Arabidopsis, when grown under short day conditions (16 hours dark, 8 hours light, 22oC) develop extensive secondary thickened hypocotyls with both a vascular and cork cambium (Chaffey et al, 2002, Phys. Plant., 114:594-600). It has been found that once secondary xylem development is completed within the Arabidopsis hypocotyls, it closely resembles the structure of the wood of angiosperm trees (Chaffey et al, 2002, Phys. Plant., 114:594-600). We can utilise this model Arabidopsis tree to identify genes that are important for secondary cell wall formation in xylem cells and therefore important for wood development. Columbia plants were grown for 3 months under short day conditions and secondary thickened hypocotyls were snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen. RNA was isolated from these hypocotyls and submitted to NASC for probing against the ATH1-121501 full GeneChip. Keywords: growth_condition_design 2 samples