LOBLOLLY PINE ROOT ESTs AND THEIR USE FOR UNDERSTANDING GENE RESPONSES TO ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS

¹ Warnell School of Forest Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30605, USA

² Depertment of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30605, USA

Rooted-cuttings of loblolly pine were subjected to more than a dozen physical, chemical and nutritional stresses, after which mRNA from the harvested roots was used to prepare cDNA libraries for EST discovery. More than 40,000 3’ and 5’ EST sequences have been characterized and deposited in GenBank to date, and matching cDNA clones are available from the investigators upon request. The project goal is to place at least 150,000 pine root ESTs in the public database. Preliminary analyses have identified genes responsive to drought stress and recovery, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and iron deficiency, as well as salt and boron exposure. Potentially useful SNPs and SSRs have been associated with some of these responsive genes. Multiple clustering analyses have been performed and the results are available via the project website (http://www.fungen.org/Projects/Pine/Pine.htm). An initial milestone uniscript set was identified, and provides the basis for production of microarrays having about 7,000 cDNA elements. Current plans are to produce sufficient numbers of microarrays by Spring 2004 that they can be distributed to interested researchers on a cost recovery basis. This work was funded by NSF grant DBI-0211807.