Transcriptome of plants cells in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle

Gene expression must be reconfigured rapidly during the subsequent phases of the cell cycle to execute the cellular functions specific of each phase. Post-transcriptional regulation has a predominant role in modulating gene expression during the mitotic cell cycle, including among other mechanisms, protein phosphorylation and ubiquitination, differential protein stability and mRNA localization and translatability. Regulation at the transcriptional level is also important, as studies conducted in synchronized plant cell suspension cultures have identified hundreds of genes with periodic patterns of genes expression across the phases of the cell cycle. We describe here an alternative strategy to cell suspension cultures to profile the transcriptome of Arabidopsis root cells in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle. Through fluorescence activated cell sorting we first isolated cells in G2/M using CYCB1;1-GFP, a reporter of a mitotic cyclin. The analysis of the transcriptome of these cells allowed us to identify hundreds of genes whose expression is depleted or enriched in G2/M cells. We analyzed the transcriptome of 3 biological replicates of complete root meristems and G2/M cells obtained by FACS from roots expressing CYCB1;1-GFP.