Abstract
The angiosperm female gametophyte most often consists of one egg cell, two synergid cells, one central cell and three antipodal cells. It is considered that each of these four cell type performs unique functions that are essential for the reproductive process. However, detailed functions of these cells are largely unclear because few genes expressed in these cells have been identified. To reveal detailed function of component cells in rice female gametophyte, we planned to do gene expression analysis of these four cells using microarray. At first, we isolated live rice egg and synergid cells and their extracted RNA were analyzed by Agilent rice 44k oligo microarray. Several rice homologues of the Arabidopsis genes which were expressed in egg or synergid cell were also highly expressed in corresponding rice cells. We validated the microarray data using transgenic rice harboring promoter::GFP fusions. These results indicated that our microarray analysis were highly reliable. Now we are analyzing rice central and antipodal cell in similar manner. Future functional analysis of genes revealed from our study may figure out detailed function of each component cell of female gametophyte.
