ANALYSIS OF ORGAN-SPECIFIC AND -PREFERENTIALLY EXPRESSED GENES FROM ANTHER AND TEPAL OF LILY

We have randomly selected 2,000 cDNA clones from each of an anther and a tepal cDNA library of oriental lily.
To isolate organ-specific or -preferential expressed sequence tagged clones (ESTs), differential slot blot hybridization was used.
As a result, 150 anther-specific ESTs, 447 anther-preferential ESTs, and only 435 tepal-preferential ESTs were found.
The selected clones were partially sequenced at the putative 5′-end of insert cDNAs.
Among the selected anther ESTs, 36 anther-specific ESTs and 184 anther-preferential ESTs were identified by BLAST programs and databases.
Anther-specific or preferentially expressed ESTs were sorted into the 11 general function-based categories.
The primary metabolism-related genes were the most prevalent.
Cell wall structure, cytoskeleton, gene expression, and protein synthesis-related groups were the second most prevalent.
We examined expression pattern of 150 anther-specific ESTs during anther development using slot blot hybridization.
Most of the genes (123 ESTs) were strongly expressed in mature anther.
RNA blot analyses of 32 anther-specific genes revealed that 27 of them were also expressed at high level in mature pollen.
The analyzed ESTs of anther indicated that most of them are related to pollen or anther development.
From 447 tepal-preferentially expressed ESTs, the biological roles and the functions of 249 ESTs were identified by homology searching using the BLAST programs.
The sorting of ESTs into general function-based categories showed that metabolism-related genes were the most prevalent among the identified cDNA clones of both of anther and tepal.