Suppression subtractive hybridization identifies differentially expressed genes in Brassica napus chlorophyll-reduced mutant

Abstract

Suppressive subtraction hybridization (SSH) was used to identify differentially expressed genes caused by a chlorophyll-reduced mutation in B. napus. The cDNA fragments, derived from SSH positive subtractive library (tester: normal wild type, driver: mutant) were cloned into pMD18-T vector. Two hundred SSH cDNA clones were screened by dot blot array, and 151 clones were identified as differentially expressed cDNA fragments in Cr3529 line. Thirty-six positive clones which showed marked expression differences were selected and sequenced. After redundant cDNAs were removed, 33 differentially expressed unique cDNA section clones were obtained. Among the 33 clones, two clones possess different parts of the cDNA sequence of the same gene coding geranylgeranyl reductase, four clones belong to unknown proteins, and the rest share homology to genes of diverse class. Sequence analysis showed that at least 12 genes were discovered to be related to the photosynthesis, seven of them coded the proteins which belong to the subunit of photosystem 2. RNA gel blot analysis showed that compared with 3529, the gene expression of the chlorophyll a/b-binding protein Lhcb2 in photosystem 2 declined markedly in the cotyledons and seedling leaves of Cr3529, indicating that the reduced light-harvesting complex 2 accumulation in thylakoid membrane of Cr3529 was due to the decrease of the related gene mRNA level for translation.