Carbohydrate starvation is an efficient stress treatment for induction of microspore embryogenesis. Transcriptome analysis of anthers response to mannitol treatment using the 22k Barley1 GeneChip revealed large changes in gene expression. Statistical analysis and filtering for 4-fold or greater changes resulted in 2,673 genes, of which 887 were up-regulated and 1,786 down-regulated. Great diffe...

Brassica napus cultivar Westar is non-embryogenic under all standard protocols for induction of microspore embryogenesis; however, the rare embryos produced in Westar microspore cultures, induced with added brassinosteroids, were found to develop into heritably stable embryogenic lines after chromosome doubling. One of the Westar-derived doubled haploid (DH) lines, DH-2, produced up to 30% the ...

In barley, microarray technology has allowed to study the gene expression profiling associated with the stress pretreatment phase of microspore embryogenesis, where the reprogramming of microspores takes place. Transcriptome analysis of anthers before and after four days of mannitol pretreatment, revealed changes in the expression of 2,673 genes. A thorough study of these differentially express...

Somatic embryogenesis in Arabidopsis is achieved by culturing bending-cotyledon embryos on a 2,4-D-containing induction medium for 14 d followed by a transfer on to a hormone-free development medium. Several genes orthologous to Arabidopsis SHOOTMERISTEMLESS (STM), CLAVATA 1 (CLV1), and ZWILLE (ZLL) were isolated from Brassica oleracea (Bo), B. rapa (Br), and B. napus (Bn), and ectopically expr...

Isolated microspores of Brassica napus are developmentally programmed to form gametes; however, microspores can be reprogrammed through stress treatments to undergo appropriate divisions and form embryos. We are interested in the identification and isolation of factors and genes associated with the induction and establishment of embryogenesis in isolated microspores. Standard and normalized cDN...