Using Genomics To Dissect Seed Development

JAVIER WAGMAISTER , ANHTHU Q. BUI , BRANDON H. LE , CHEN CHENG , ROBERT B. GOLDBERG

Town & Country Convention Center, San Diego, CA, USA

Conferencia; Plant & Animal Genomes XVI Conference; 2008

A major challenge for the 21st century is to increase yields of major crop plants, such as soybean, using sophisticated genetic and genomic technologies, including genetic engineering. One way to increase crop yields, and food production, is to understand all of the genes required to “make a seed” in order to engineer plants with more seeds, bigger seeds, and seeds with improved nutritional composition. Our laboratory has been investigating gene activity during seed development in order to identify the genes and regulatory networks required to program seed development. In this lecture, I will discuss GeneChip experiments with mRNAs captured using laser capture microdissection (LCM) from every soybean seed compartment (e.g., embryo, endosperm, seed coat), region (embryo proper, suspensor), and tissue (e.g., inner integument, endothelium, seed coat epidermis) throughout seed development. Our experiments have estimated the number of genes required to "make a seed." In addition, these experiments uncovered mRNAs that are specific for each soybean seed compartment and region – including those that encode transcription factors. How genes active in different parts of the seed are organized into regulatory networks that program seed development remain to be determined.