Gene expression between dry and imbibed seeds in vitamin C defective (vtc) mutants and wild-type Arabidopsis thaliana

In the dry state, orthodox seeds have little antioxidant capacity, relying on reduced glutathione and tocochromanols for antioxidant defences rather than ascorbate or ascorbate peroxidase (APX). Ascorbate is synthesised de novo within a few hours of imbibition resulting in rapid increases in the ascorbate pool in the developing embryo. The knock-on effects of enhanced oxidation on embryo development before and after imbibition remain poorly characterised. A T-DNA insertional mutant line (SAIL_769_H05) line was used in these studies together with vtc2-1 mutants that were originally identified in an ethyl-methanesulfonate (EMS) mutagenesis screen. Expression levels of dry seeds and imbibed seeds of the genotypes Col0, vtc2 (EMS) and vtc2.5 (SAIL_769_H05) were quantified using Illumina RNA-seq technology