Effects of high temperature treatment on the rice floral organ transcriptome as determined by RNA-seq analysis

【摘要】：To understand the mechanism of high temperature stress on rice floral organ development at meiophase in the pollen mother cell,we used Illumina/Solexa sequencing to analyze the rice floral organ transcriptome in response to high temperature treatment.The results showed that there were 16,352,564 and15,691,764 clean sequence reads in libraries prepared from the rice floral organ at normal and high temperatures,respectively.A total of 32,466 genes were obtained via splicing and assembly to the Nipponbare reference genome model,and of these,7,178 were differentially expressed between the two temperatures.We found from GO(Gene Ontology) functional enrichment and KEGG Pathway enrichment analysis that 11 differentially expressed genes(DEGs) predicted to have hydrolase activity were up-regulated in the floral organ following high temperature treatment.Combined with qRT-PCR validation,in starch and sucrose metabolism pathways,the relative expression levels of five DEGs belonging to the pectinase gene family were 10-fold greater in the rice floral organ after high temperature treatment compared to the control.Based on this result,we conclude that the overexpression of pectinase family genes may be the direct cause of rice floral organ abortion at high temperatures.Characterization of these DEGs lays the foundation for further research on the molecular mechanism of high temperature damage to the rice floral organ.