Expression data from the seed coats of black (iRT) and brown (irT) soybean variant for alleles of the R locus. Glycine max

The seed coat of black (iRT) soybean with the dominant R allele begins to accumulate cyanic pigments at the transition stage of seed development (300 – 400 mg fresh seed weight), whereas the brown (irT) nearly-isogenic seed coat with the recessive r allele lacks cyanic pigments at all stages of seed development. We used microarrays to determine global gene expression differences between black (iRT) and brown (irT) soybean seed coats at the transition stage of seed development (300 – 400 mg fresh seed weight). Overall design: To identify the complete set of gene transcripts that are differentially expressed between the seed coats of black (iRT) and brown (irT) Clark isolines, seed coats were dissected at the transition stage of seed development (300 – 400 mg fresh seed weight) for microarray analysis using the Affymetrix Soybean GeneChip. To ensure seed coats were of the same stage of development, the days post anthesis, pod length, pod color, embryo morphology, and transcript levels of the developmental marker gene Gm-r1083-1191, a putative cutin biosynthesis gene, and DFR1 were ensured to be equivalent between black (iRT) and brown (irT) isolines.