Uncovering the Arabidopsis thaliana nectary transcriptome: investigation of differential gene expression in floral nectariferous tissues.

Brian W Kram,Clay J Carter,Wayne W Xu

doi:10.1186/1471-2229-9-92

Brian W Kram, Clay J Carter + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2229-9-92

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Abstract

BackgroundMany flowering plants attract pollinators by offering a reward of floral nectar. Remarkably, the molecular events involved in the development of nectaries, the organs that produce nectar, as well as the synthesis and secretion of nectar itself, are poorly understood. Indeed, to date, no genes have been shown to directly affect the de novo production or quality of floral nectar. To address this gap in knowledge, the ATH1 Affymetrix® GeneChip array was used to systematically investigate the Arabidopsis nectary transcriptome to identify genes and pathways potentially involved in nectar production.ResultsIn this study, we identified a large number of genes differentially expressed between secretory lateral nectaries and non-secretory median nectary tissues, as well as between mature lateral nectaries (post-anthesis) and immature lateral nectaries (pre-anthesis). Expression within nectaries was also compared to thirteen non-nectary reference tissues, from which 270 genes were identified as being significantly upregulated in nectaries. The expression patterns of 14 nectary-enriched genes were also confirmed via RT PCR. Upon looking into functional groups of upregulated genes, pathways involved in gene regulation, carbohydrate metabolism, and lipid metabolism were particularly enriched in nectaries versus reference tissues.ConclusionA large number of genes preferentially expressed in nectaries, as well as between nectary types and developmental stages, were identified. Several hypotheses relating to mechanisms of nectar production and regulation thereof are proposed, and provide a starting point for reverse genetics approaches to determine molecular mechanisms underlying nectar synthesis and secretion.

Highlights

Many flowering plants attract pollinators by offering a reward of floral nectar
A global picture of gene expression in nectaries is currently lacking; Arabidopsis nectaries are loosely connected to adjacent floral tissues and can be manually dissected from local non-nectariferous tissues (e.g., Additional file 1)
Individual Arabidopsis nectaries are extremely small, ~200–300 nectaries were pooled and processed as single biological replicates as indicated in Table 1

Summary

Introduction

Many flowering plants attract pollinators by offering a reward of floral nectar. The molecular events involved in the development of nectaries, the organs that produce nectar, as well as the synthesis and secretion of nectar itself, are poorly understood. To date, no genes have been shown to directly affect the de novo production or quality of floral nectar. To address this gap in knowledge, the ATH1 Affymetrix® GeneChip array was used to systematically investigate the Arabidopsis nectary transcriptome to identify genes and pathways potentially involved in nectar production. Nectar is the principal reward offered by flowering plants to attract pollinators [1]; this sugary solution is secreted from floral organs known as nectaries. Recently has the goal of identifying the genetic mechanisms regulating nectary development, and nectar production, begun to receive more attention

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