Characterisation of germination, anaerobiosis and abiotic stress in rice using transcriptomic approaches

this alone is not enough to develop an understanding of the primary response to changes in oxygen levels, as any differences observed may be due to the specific developmental stage and/or due to secondary responses. Thus, additional experimental strategies were undertaken to define oxygen dependent changes in the transcriptome and metabolome. This was achieved by i) analysis of the transcriptomic and metabolomic changes that occur under aerobic and anaerobic germination in rice, ii) analysis of embryos switched from aerobic to anaerobic growth conditions, and iii) vice versa (Study II). Only a relatively small number of transcripts displayed differential expression at the early time points during aerobic and anaerobic germination, with most changes occurring at 3 hours after imbibition (HAI) or later. This indicated that the earliest stages of germination are developmentally programmed and proceed largely unchanged, irrespective of external conditions...