Low temperature stress in cv. Dicktoo

In this study we used the Affymetrix Barley 1 GeneChip to investigate transcriptome responses of barley cv. Dicktoo to low temperature, including triplicated measurements of cold, freeze/thaw cycles and de-acclimation over 33 days. Keywords: stress response Plants were grown at 20ºC for seven days and subject to a symmetrical cycle of acclimation, cold, freeze-thaw, and deacclimation. Chilling began by decreasing the temperature overnight from 20ºC to 4ºC at a rate of 1.3ºC•h-1 and maintaining temperatures of 4 ºC in the day and 2ºC at night for 5 days. Freeze-thaw cycling lasted 12 days with day temperatures of 4ºC and night temperatures gradually decreasing from -2ºC the first night to -4ºC for three nights and -10ºC for four nights, then recovering to -4ºC for three nights and -2ºC for one night. This treatment was designed to allow daily freeze-thaw cycling and protein synthesis. Chilling conditions (4ºC day, 2ºC night) were resumed for five days, followed by deacclimation with increasing temperature to 20ºC overnight and maintaining for three days. Sampling was done at four different times, each at the 11th hour of light to avoid circadian effects: 1) before chilling treatment, 2) five days after initiation of chilling treatment, 3) eight days into freeze-thaw treatment and 4) three days into de-acclimation.