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Generation and analysis of expressed sequence tags from almond (Prunus dulcis Mill.) pistils

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Abstract

Large-scale single-pass sequencing of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) can give a global picture of the genes involved in the development and function of organs and tissues. Almond (Prunus dulcis Mill. syn. Amygdalus communis L. var. dulcis) is a self-incompatible fruit tree of the family Rosaceae. As an attempt to examine the transcripts expressed during pistil development, we randomly selected and partially sequenced over 1,000 clones from a cDNA library of almond pistils. Analysis of the ESTs using the NCBI non-redundant protein database revealed that 456 (~45.4%) have significant similarity to protein coding sequences in the database. Among the 549 cDNAs with no similarity to known protein sequences, 56 clones have significant similarity to nucleotide sequences registered in the databases. Sequences were assembled using StackPACK and the estimated number of genes identified was 716: 121 contigs and 595 singletons. Only eight of the unique cDNA clones correspond to previously isolated gene sequences of P. dulcis. After functional classification of almond ESTs, "stress resistance and defense" and "protein synthesis and processing" ESTs were found to be the most numerous. Our EST analysis provides a first picture of the numerous almond genes potentially involved in pistil development. It also contributes to our knowledge about gene expression patterns in pistils while providing an extensive reservoir for gene cloning and genetic mapping in almond and other related fruit trees.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Shanghai Sangon Biotechnology Co, for partial help in sequencing, BioIT, Inc. for help in software support, Martie Fakude and Tania Broveak Hide at SANBI for help in using StackPACK, Prof. Cao Mingqing at our center for his help in the work, Prof. Margarida Oliveira at Instituto Biologia Experimental e Tecnologica (IBET) of Portugal for her comments on this work, and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on, and revision of, the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant No. 30170649) and the National Tenth Five-Year Key Project of Science and Technology of China (grant No. 2001BA707B02).

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  1. Beijing Agro-Biotechnology Research Center, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, 100089, Beijing, P.R. China

    Yuan-Qing Jiang & Rong-Cai Ma

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  1. Yuan-Qing Jiang
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  2. Rong-Cai Ma
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Correspondence to Rong-Cai Ma.

Additional information

The nucleotide sequence data reported in this article appear in GenBank under the following accession numbers: BQ641013–BQ641227, BQ641229, BQ70341–BQ703709, BU645424–BU645594 and CA853933–CA854258

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Jiang, YQ., Ma, RC. Generation and analysis of expressed sequence tags from almond (Prunus dulcis Mill.) pistils. Sex Plant Reprod 16, 197–207 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00497-003-0190-8

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