Abstract
BackgroundRoot hairs are valuable in taking up nutrients and water from the rhizosphere and serving as sites of interactions with soil microorganisms. By increasing the external surface area of the roots or interacting with rhizobacteria, root hairs directly and indirectly promote plant growth and yield. Transcriptome data can be used to understand root-hair development in rice.ResultWe performed Agilent 44 K microarray experiments with enriched root-hair samples and identified 409 root hair-preferential genes in rice. The expression patterns of six genes were confirmed using a GUS reporter system and quantitative RT-PCR analysis. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis demonstrated that 13 GO terms, including oxygen transport and cell wall generation, were highly over-represented in those genes. Although comparative analysis between rice and Arabidopsis revealed a large proportion of orthologous pairs, their spatial expression patterns were not conserved. To investigate the molecular network associated with root hair-preferential genes in rice, we analyzed the PPI network as well as coexpression data. Subsequently, we developed a refined network consisting of 24 interactions between 10 genes and 18 of their interactors.ConclusionIdentification of root hair-preferential genes and in depth analysis of those genes will be a useful reference to accelerate the understanding of root-hair development in rice.
Highlights
Root hairs are valuable in taking up nutrients and water from the rhizosphere and serving as sites of interactions with soil microorganisms
Identification of root hair-preferential genes and in depth analysis of those genes will be a useful reference to accelerate the understanding of root-hair development in rice
We monitored the expression of OsEXPA17, a marker gene for rice root hairs (Yu et al 2011) and found that it was strongly amplified in the root hairs, but only weakly detected in the roots (Fig. 1c)
Summary
Root hairs are valuable in taking up nutrients and water from the rhizosphere and serving as sites of interactions with soil microorganisms. By increasing the external surface area of the roots or interacting with rhizobacteria, root hairs directly and indirectly promote plant growth and yield. Root hairs are tip-growing extensions that arise from specialized epidermal cells (Leavitt 1904) They have pivotal roles in taking up nutrients and water from the rhizosphere and serve as sites of interactions with soil microorganisms (Dazzo et al 1984; Gilroy and Jones 2000). Longer and more abundant root hairs are a desirable trait in modern crop breeding programs (Brown et al 2013) These morphological characteristics are controlled by environmental and genetic factors (Bates and Lynch 2000; Ma et al 2001b; Muller and Schmidt 2004; Datta et al 2011). Nitrogen or potassium deprivations stimulate this elongation, and several genes related to uptake of those nutrients are preferentially expressed in the root hairs
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
