Cool-responsive change in the rice anther transcriptome

The genome-wide transcriptome analyses using microarray probes containing genes and repeat sequences have been performed to examine response to the low-temperature in rice. We have particularly focused on the rice anther at the booting stage, since the low-temperature at this stage resulted in pollen abortion. The results demonstrated that the low-temperature stress caused genome-wide changes of transcriptional activities not only in genes, but also in repeat sequences of the rice anther. The degrees of the temperature responsive changes varied among the rice strains. The five rice strains exposed to the low temperature at 12°C for four days, were used for the microarray analyses. RNA was extracted from the anthers one day (C1), three days (C3) and five days (C5: this is one day after completion of the cool treatment) after the cool treatment and non-treated anthers (C0) with three biological replicates.