Title: GENE EXPRESSION PROFILING OF RICE DEFENSE MECHANISM BY MICROARRAY TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

We have initiated a program aimed at understanding signal transduction pathways of host defense responses to different bacterial and fungal pathogens using rice as a model system. More than 100,000 rice ESTs, deriving from 40 different libraries, have been sequenced and taken through BLAST analysis at our genomic facility. Over 150 of these sequence show similarity with known disease resistance genes from rice and other species. All of these, together with a series of clones presumed to be involved in signal transduction pathways, housekeeping genes, or general metabolic pathways, were PCR amplified and gridded on microarray slides. This rice microarray has been developed for a time-course gene expression analysis of plant defense response following pathogen infections. By combining different subtraction technologies and cDNA microarrays we are attempting to develop a comprehensive and searchable database containing the information about gene expression and defense pathways activation following pathogen infection and under different stress conditions.