Comparison of transcriptome profile between wild-type and Epi-df mutant plants

We identified and characterized a rice epigenetic mutant Epi-df which exhibits a dwarf stature and various floral defects that are inherited in a dominant fashion. We demonstrated that Epi-df participates in Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) mediated gene silencing. Epigenetic mutations results in ectopic expression of Epi-df and pleiotropic developmental defects in mutant plants. Moreover, ectopic expression of Epi-df leads to mis-regulated H3K27me3 and changed expression of hundreds of genes involved in a wide range of biological processes. We used microarrays to identify differentially expressed genes in Epi-df. For genome-wide expression analysis of Epi-df, three replicates of WT and Epi-df samples (RNA from 3-week-old seedlings) were analyzed on Affymetrix Genechip® Rice Genome arrays by an Affymetrix service facility (CapitalBio Corporation) according to the manufacturer’s protocols. Genes showing a 2-fold change with a q-value ≤ 0.05 were considered to be differentially expressed.