Comprehensive assembly and analysis of the transcriptome of maritime pine developing embryos.

Rodrigues AS, De Vega JJ, Miguel CM. Comprehensive assembly and analysis of the transcriptome of maritime pine developing embryos. BMC Plant Biol. 2018 Dec. 29;18(1):379. PubMed PMID: 30594130

There are clear differences in embryo development between angiosperm and gymnosperm species. Most of the current knowledge on gene expression and regulation during plant embryo development has derived from studies on angiosperms species, in particular from the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The few published studies on transcript profiling of conifer embryogenesis show the existence of many putative embryo-specific transcripts without an assigned function. In order to extend the knowledge on the transcriptomic expression during conifer embryogenesis, we sequenced the transcriptome of zygotic embryos for several developmental stages that cover most of Pinus pinaster (maritime pine) embryogenesis.

Our results extend the understanding of gene expression and regulation during zygotic embryogenesis in conifers and are a valuable resource to support further improvements in somatic embryogenesis for vegetative propagation of conifer species. Specific transcripts associated with carbohydrate metabolism, monosaccharide transport and epigenetic regulation seem to play an important role in pine early embryogenesis and may be a source of reliable molecular markers for early embryogenesis.