Analysis of Gene Expression Differences Between Eastern and Western Loblolly Pine Seed Sources

Abstract

The selection of an appropriate seed source for a given geographic region is critical to ensuring prosperous southern pine plantations. The observed variation between eastern and western loblolly pine seed sources has shown differences in economically advantageous traits such as drought tolerance, growth rates, and disease resistance. Understanding what drives these local adaptations is of interest, given that current forecasted climate modeling suggests there will be increased temperatures and changes to precipitation by the year 2050. The objectives of this experiment were to 1) identify differentially expressed transcripts between eastern and western loblolly pine sources; 2) link these transcripts to Arabidopsis orthologs; 3) compare GO categories of differentially-expressed transcripts. The findings highlighted include interesting pathways and genes that are related to the known differences among eastern and western seed provenances. Additionally, they represent fundamental differences in the beginning of seedling development without any treatment or disease pressure applied, showing that there are detectable differences between these two provenances at a young age. Overall, this experiment contributes to the body of literature on fundamental differences between loblolly pine seed sources.