Comparative Transcriptome Profiling of Maize Lines

Four tissues (leaves, 1 mm anthers, 1.5 mm anthers, pollen) from one hybrid and one inbred maize line were hybridized with the W23 inbred on Agilent oligonucleotide microarrays with 21K elements. Tissue-specific gene expression patterns were documented with leaves having the most tissue-specific transcripts. Haploid pollen expresses about half as many genes as the other samples. High overlap of gene expression was found between leaves and anthers. Anther and pollen transcript expression showed high conservation among the three lines while leaves had more divergence. Antisense transcripts represented about 6 to 14 percent of total transcriptome by tissue type but were similar across lines. Gene Ontology (GO) annotations were assigned and tabulated. Enrichment in GO terms related to cell cycle functions was found for the identified antisense transcripts. Microarray results were validated via quantitative real time PCR and by hybridization to a second oligonucleotide microarray platform. Keywords: genetic background comparison We analyzed 4 tissues from 3 maize lines, each with 3 biological replicates, with W23 as a reference, and hybridized to 24 arrays.