Effect of deuterium oxide on Arabidopsis gene expression

2H2O has a long history as a protein or amino acid labeling techinique, and such labeling systems have proven effective for many different types of studies. A disadvantage of a 2H2O labeling system is that plant growth is inhibited as the percentage of deuterium in the medium increases. However the molecular effects of 2H2O on plant growth has not previoulsly been investigated. To assist with the experimental design of proteomic 2H2O labeling studies, we used microarrays to determine the global effects of 2H2O on gene expression and to indentify genes which genes are effected by 2H2O treatment. RNA was prepared from Arabidopsis seedlings grown for seven days on either H2O control media or 30% 2H2O to examine the long-term effects of 2H2O treatment,and from seedlings shifted from H2O media to either 2H2O or H2O for 4 h to examine short-term effects on gene expression, and seedlings shifted from 2H2O to H2O for 4 h to examine recovery effects on gene expression.