Time-series of the re-establishment of desiccation tolerance by ABA in germinated Arabidopsis thaliana seeds

Mature seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana are desiccation tolerant, but they lose DT while progressing to germination. Yet, there is a small developmental window during which DT can be rescued by treatment with abscisic acid (ABA). We used a time-series of microarrays to gain temporal resolution and identify relevant genes in the re-establishment of desiccation tolerance with ABA. Germinated Arabidopsis seeds at the stage of radicle protrusion were incubated in ABA for 0h, 2h, 12h, 24h and 72h for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. Three biological replicates represented by pools of seeds bulk-harvested from at least two plants were used.