%0 Journal Article
%T Analysis of wheat SAGE tags reveals evidence for widespread antisense transcription
%A Rebecca L Poole
%A Gary LA Barker
%A Kay Werner
%A Gaia F Biggi
%A Jane Coghill
%A J George Gibbings
%A Simon Berry
%A Jim M Dunwell
%A Keith J Edwards
%J BMC Genomics
%D 2008
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2164-9-475
%X Examination of 71,930 Long SAGE tags generated from six libraries derived from two wheat genotypes grown under two different conditions suggested that SAGE is a reliable and reproducible technique for use in studying the hexaploid wheat transcriptome. However, our results also showed that in poorly annotated and/or poorly sequenced genomes, such as hexaploid wheat, considerably more information can be extracted from SAGE data by carrying out a systematic analysis of both perfect and "fuzzy" (partially matched) tags. This detailed analysis of the SAGE data shows first that while there is evidence of alternative polyadenylation this appears to occur exclusively within the 3' untranslated regions. Secondly, we found no strong evidence for widespread alternative splicing in the developing wheat grain transcriptome. However, analysis of our SAGE data shows that antisense transcripts are probably widespread within the transcriptome and appear to be derived from numerous locations within the genome. Examination of antisense transcripts showing sequence similarity to the Puroindoline a and Puroindoline b genes suggests that such antisense transcripts might have a role in the regulation of gene expression.Our results indicate that the detailed analysis of transcriptome data, such as SAGE tags, is essential to understand fully the factors that regulate gene expression and that such analysis of the wheat grain transcriptome reveals that antisense transcripts maybe widespread and hence probably play a significant role in the regulation of gene expression during grain development.With cereals constituting more than 60% of the world's dietary intake, the bread wheat Triticum aestivum is one of the most important crops in world agriculture [1,2]. Despite the high yields achieved in Europe there is still a real need to generate improved cultivars, as yield and flour quality can be dramatically affected by the environment. This need has become even greater in recent years with tight
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/9/475