Zea mays Transcriptome or Gene expression. Zea mays

Background: Plant diurnal rhythms are vital environmental adaptations to coordinate internal physiological responses to alternating day-night cycles. A comprehensive view of diurnal biology has been lacking for maize (Zea mays), a major world crop. Methodology: A photosynthetic tissue, the leaf, and a non-photosynthetic tissue, the developing ear, were sampled under natural field conditions. Genome-wide transcript profiling was conducted on a high-density 105K Agilent microarray to investigate diurnal rhythms. Overall design: The top-most immature ear, 4-5 cm in length, was collected. Plants were sampled every 4 hours over 3 days. Our sampling times were: 6 am (dawn), 10 am, 2 pm, 6 pm, 10 pm and 2 am. Tissues were collected from three field reps and within each field rep we collected samples from three individual plants