Transcriptome of Equisetum rhizome. Equisetum

The rhizome is the original stem of the vascular plant lineage. Before plants developed upright stems, they grew horizontally via rhizomes. All extant primitive vascular plants and many advanced angiosperms still use rhizomes as their sole stem type. Rhizomes are responsible for the invasiveness, hardiness, and even harshness of many of the world's most significant weeds, such as giant Salvinia, bermudagrass, johnsongrass, quack grass, cogon grass, and the horsetail's scouring rush, to name a few of the most important. The ability of these rhizomatous weedy plants to invade new territory via underground 'sneak attack' has led to their great success world-wide, and is directly attributable to their rhizomes. In contrast, many of the world's most important medicinal plants, such as ginger and turmeric produce their medicinally active components in their rhizomes. Despite their importance, very little is known about what genes are involved in the growth and function of rhizomes. The aim of this project is to identify genes and proteins that are expressed exclusively in the rhizome and to characterize the function of specific genes that play important roles in rhizome function from plants across the plant kingdom.