Abstract
BackgroundFast-growing Eucalyptus grandis trees are one of the most efficient producers of wood in South Africa. The most serious problem affecting the quality and yield of solid wood products is the occurrence of end splitting in logs. Selection of E. grandis planting stock that exhibit preferred wood qualities is thus a priority of the South African forestry industry. We used microarray-based DNA-amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis in combination with expression profiling to develop fingerprints and profile gene expression of wood-forming tissue of seven different E. grandis trees.ResultsA 1578-probe cDNA microarray was constructed by arraying 768 cDNA-AFLP clones and 810 cDNA library clones from seven individual E. grandis trees onto silanised slides. The results revealed that 32% of the spotted fragments showed distinct expression patterns (with a fold change of at least 1.4 or -1.4 and a p value of 0.01) could be grouped into clusters representing co-expressed genes. Evaluation of the binary distribution of cDNA-AFLP fragments on the array showed that the individual genotypes could be discriminated.ConclusionA simple, yet general method was developed for genotyping and expression profiling of wood-forming tissue of E. grandis trees differing in their splitting characteristics and in their lignin contents. Evaluation of gene expression profiles and the binary distribution of cDNA-AFLP fragments on the chip suggest that the prototype chip developed could be useful for transcript profiling and for the identification of Eucalyptus trees with preferred wood quality traits in commercial breeding programmes.
Highlights
Fast-growing Eucalyptus grandis trees are one of the most efficient producers of wood in South Africa
The most serious problem affecting wood quality and product yield of South African Eucalyptus trees is the high level of growth stress that develops as the trees grow, manifesting itself in severe splitting when the trees are felled and cut into logs [2]
RNA and clonal deoxyribonucleic acid (cDNA) quality The RNA extracted from wood-forming tissue of the seven E. grandis trees was found to be of high quality and the absence of contaminating genomic DNA was confirmed for all cDNA samples
Summary
Fast-growing Eucalyptus grandis trees are one of the most efficient producers of wood in South Africa. The most serious problem affecting the quality and yield of solid wood products is the occurrence of end splitting in logs. Eucalyptus tree species are an extremely important source of hardwood for forest industries worldwide. It is the most widely planted hardwood species in the temperate, subtropical and tropical zones. The most serious problem affecting wood quality and product yield of South African Eucalyptus trees is the high level of growth stress that develops as the trees grow, manifesting itself in severe splitting when the trees are felled and cut into logs [2]. No genes linked to the differential response of E. grandis trees to wood end splitting and to growth stress (page number not for citation purposes)
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