Transcriptomes of developing rice ovules

We aimed to reveal transitions of gene expression profile in developing female gametophytes of rice in this study. The developmental process of rice female gametophyte, from megaspore mother cell at pre-meiotic stage to mature embryo sac, was separated into six stages. Developing ovules at each stage were separated from surrounding sporophyte tissues and collected using LMD. RNA samples extracted from them were subjected to microarray analysis. Dynamic gene expression profiles during female gametogenesis were revealed. Comparison of transcriptome in developing female gametophytes with those of male gametophyes revealed both conserved and diverged features between male and female gametogenesis. A lot of characteristic genes, such as a subset of transposable elements, auxin responsive genes and transcription factor genes, which showed dynamic expression profiles during female gametogenesis, were identified in this study. We believe that our transcriptome data will serve as a backbone of further focused biological analysis to understand the molecular basis in female gametogenesis of plant. Gene expression profiles of developing ovules were analyzed according to stage progression. Three or four biological replicates were prepared for each stage, and a total of nineteen samples were analyzed.