IC4R006-lncRNA-2015-26387578

Project Title

Analysis of non-coding transcriptome in rice and maize uncovers roles of conserved lncRNAs associated with agriculture traits

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have recently been found to widely exist in eukaryotes and play important roles in key biological processes. To extend the knowledge of lncRNAs in crop plants, the researchers performed both non-directional and strand-specific RNA-sequencing experiments to profile non-coding transcriptomes of various rice and maize organs at different developmental stages.

Seeds from the cultivated rice subspecies Oryza sativa L. ssp. Japonica cultivar Nipponbare were grown in a greenhouse in Singapore under natural light conditions. Flower buds were collected before flowering and flowers were collected at the flowering day. Flag leaves and roots were collected at both the before- and afterflowering stage. The before-flowering sample was defined as a mixture of different stages in a period from panicle initiation to 1 day before flowering. The after-flowering sample was defined as a mixture of different stages after the flowering day. Milk grains and mature seeds were also collected. Maize (Zea mays L. ssp. mays) B73 seeds were germinated on wetted paper towel in plates for 2 days and then transferred to soil and grown for 2 weeks under 26°C and 16 h light and 8 h dark condition in a growth chamber at The Rockefeller University. Shoot and root tissues were separately collected. All samples were frozen in liquid nitrogen.

Laboratory of Plant Molecular Biology, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065, USA, and
Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, 1 Research Link, National University of Singapore, Singapore City 117604, Singapore