Gene expression profiling in Arabidopsis using DNA microarrays

The microarray facility at MSU is part of the Arabidopsis Functional Genomics Consortium (AFGC), a collaboration recently funded by the National Science Foundation. Together with Shauna Sommerville at Carnegie Institute and Mike Cherry at Stanford University our goal is to make DNA microarray technology available to the academic community through the WWW. The first year of our project will be devoted to optimisation of the technology and preparation of the microarrays containing thousands of Arabidopsis cDNAs. The DNA fragments spotted on the microarray will be amplified from the collection of cDNA clones sequenced by Tom Newman. By hybridising these arrays with probes corresponding to mRNA extracted from different tissues and organs or from plants subjected to different stimuli, global gene expression patterns can be investigated. We will also examine the expression of plant specific genes of unknown function under a set of standardised conditions. The microarray facility is scheduled to begin providing service to academic researchers in year two of our project and the service will be continued in year three. Other investigators in the AFGC will establish a gene knockout facility. Together these technologies should provide the scientific community with a set of powerful tools that can be used in their efforts to understand the function and interrelationships of the genes of Arabidopsis and other plants.