Analysis of Small Heat Shock Protein Gene Family Expression (RNA-Seq) during the Tomato Fruit Maturation

ARCE, DÉBORA P; KRSTICEVIC, FLAVIA J; BERTOLACCINI, MARCO R; EZPELETA, JOAQUÍN ; PONCE, SERGIO DAMIÁN; TAPIA, ELIZABETH

IFMBE PROCEEDINGS

Springer. Huddinge : International Federation for Medical & Biological Engineering

Año: 2015 vol. 49

1680-0737

Small Heat Shock Proteins (sHSPs) are low weight chaperones that play an important role during stress response and development in all living organisms. Fruit maturation and oxidative stress can induce sHSP synthesis both in Arabidopsis and tomato plants. RNA-Seq technology is becoming widely used in various transcriptomics studies; however, analyzing and interpreting the RNA-Seq data face serious challenges. In the present work, we de novo assembled the Solanum lycopersicum transcriptome for three different maturation stages (mature green, breaker and red ripe). Differential gene expression analysis was carried out during tomato fruit development. We identified sHSPs differentially expressed that might be involved in breaker and red ripe fruit maturation. Interestingly, these sHSPs have different subcellular localization and suggest a complex regulation of the fruit maturation network process.