Gene Expression Analyses for Elucidating Mechanisms of Hormonal Action in Plants
George W. Bassel and Nicholas J. Provart
Abstract
Analysis of large-scale gene expression data sets is proving to be a powerful tool for gene function prediction,cis-element discovery and hypothesis generation usingArabidopsis thaliana. Public initiatives led by the AtGenExpress Consortium and experiments conducted by individual researchers to document the transcriptome ofArabidopsis thalianahave led to a large numbers of data sets being made publicly available for data mining by so-called ‘‘electronic northerns’’, co-expression analysis and other means.
Given that approximately 50% genes inArabidopsishave no function ascribed to them by ‘‘traditional’’ homology searches, and that only around 10% of the genes have had their function confirmed in the laboratory, these analyses can accelerate the identification of potential gene function with a mouse-click.
This chapter covers the use of data mining tools available at the Bio-Array Resource (www.bar.utoron-to.ca) for hypothesis generation in the context of plant hormone biology.