Zea mays Transcriptome or Gene expression. Zea mays

Segmental aneuploidy refers to the relative excess or deficiency of specific chromosome regions. This condition results in gene dosage imbalance and often causes severe phenotypic alterations in plants and animals. The mechanisms by which gene dosage imbalance effects gene expression and phenotype are not completely clear. The effects of aneuploidy on the transcriptome may depend on the types of cells analyzed and on the developmental stage. We performed global gene expression profiling to determine the effects of segmental aneuploidy on gene expression levels in two different maize tissues and a detailed analysis of expression of 30 genes affected by aneuploidy in multiple maize tissues. Multiple genes demonstrated qualitative changes in gene expression due to aneuploidy, when the gene became ectopically expressed or erroneously transcriptionally silenced in aneuploids relative to wild type plants. Our data strongly suggested that quantitative changes in gene expression at developmental transition points caused by variation in gene copy number progressed through tissue development and resulted in stable qualitative changes in gene expression patterns. Thus, aneuploidy in maize results in alterations of gene expression patterns that differ between tissues and developmental stages of maize seedlings. Overall design: RNA was extracted from meristem tissues of 14 day-old maize seedlings segregating for segmental trisome of a short arm of chromosome 5. There are three biological replicates of pooled wild-type siblings and three biological replicates of pooled DpDf plants. The DpDf plants are segmental aneuploids that contain three copies of the short arm of chromosome 5. These plants are all in the B73 inbred genetic background.