Developmental and Gene Expression Programs in Wheat Grain

Wheat is globally one of the most important crops. Recent advances in genomics based approaches are contributing to the development of new tools for applications in several crops. We have used genomics based approaches to advance the understanding of grain development in wheat. Towards this goal, we focused our studies on grain developmental and gene expression programs, from fertilization to maturity in hexaploid, tetraploid and diploid wheat species. These studies include dissection and isolation of tissues from key phases of grain development and detailed analyses of these tissues using Nomarski and electron microscopy, followed by RNA-seq based approaches to profile associated transcriptomes. Analyses of the results revealed gene expression programs specific to embryo, endosperm and pericarp compartments as well as dynamic programs that are regulated coordinately between these tissues and different genomes. Comparative expression analysis of A, B and D genomes suggest differential regulation of some of the alleles. Key findings from these studies and their implications for grain development in wheat will be presented.