EST技术在植物基因克隆和基因表达谱研究中的应用

The Application of EST Technology in Plant Gene Cloning and Expression Profiles Studies

表达序列标签是cDNA的部分序列 ,是通过对cDNA文库进行大规模一次性测序而获得 .对于植物研究而言 ,该技术已成为一种高效、经济的克隆重要植物基因的工具 .而且 ,通过分析来自特定组织的EST库可以定量地估计该组织中各类基因的表达丰度 .这种组织基因表达谱可用于阐明植物的代谢调控网络或植物对生物、非生物胁迫反应的信号转导途径 .文章以几个典型的实例阐释如何利用EST技术来克隆重要的植物经济性状基因及以此技术进行表达谱研究 .

Large scale single pass sequencing of cDNAs prepared from specific plant species or tissues has evolved as an inexpensive and efficient gene discovery tool that can be used to identify novel cDNAs encoding important proteins in specific plant metabolic pathways. And analysis of the collections of expressed sequence tags from specific tissues can provide quantitative estimates of gene expression levels. The obtained expression profiles of the tissues can be exploited to unravel plant regulatory networks of metabolic or signal transduction pathways of biostress and abiostress responses. This review gives several typical examples to elucidate how to use EST technology to clone economically important plant genes and how to use it in expression profile investigations.