Oryza sativa Argonaute 18 is a regulator of male sterility (RNA-Seq)

Artificial miRNA mediated knock-down ago18 transgenic lines [ago18(1), ago18(2)] showed developmentally compromised phenotype in both vegetative and reproductive tissues compared to wild-type control. We have performed RNA seq to investigate underlying molecular mechanism and to reveal functional role of AGO18 in rice. We have performed RNA seq analysis using vegetative and reproductive tissues of both WT and knock-down tansgenic lines. Four weeks old seedlings were considered as vegetative tissues and two different stage of panicle were examined as reprodictive tissues. Libraries were prepared from total RNA isolated from the tissues mentioned.