Melampsora larici-populina gene expression in different tissues and developmental stages

The transcriptome of Melampsora-larici-populina was analysed in urediniospores, germlings and during poplar leaf infection. The array probes were designed from gene models taken from the Joint Genome Institute (JGI, Department of Energy) Melampsora larici-populina genome sequence version 1. One aim of this study was to verify the expression of the automatically annotated gene models in various tissues and development stages. Another goal was to monitor gene expression profiles during poplar leaf infection and to highlight tissue-specific transcripts, e.g. in planta up-regulated transcripts for further analyses. We performed 21 hybridizations (NimbleGen) with samples derived from urediniospores, germlings and infected poplar leaves. Samples from infected poplar leaves were harvested 2, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, and 168 hours post infection (hpi). Three replicates each for 24, 48, 96 and 168 hpi. All samples were labeled with Cy3.