Item

Abstract

Secondary metabolites, from which isolation of high-quality RNA is usually problematic.Importantly, recent advances in state-of-the-art long read next generation sequencing has now opened doors to focus on non-model species. The scope of this Research Topic was to address technical approaches in transcriptomics and additional "omics" technologies but also to their application to different questions relating to cellular specification. Thereby the focus was not only on scientific findings but also on methodological improvements.With this in mind, Lievre et al. 2023Lievre et al. (doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1121570) .1121570) present novel technical advances to analyze transcriptomes of pollen at distinct stages of development. The authors developed and established a new approach for transcriptional profiling of pollen from single anthers by conducting a chemical lysis that dissolves polysaccharides prior to RNA isolation with a subsequent enrichment of mRNAs. Importantly, as developmental stages are typically highly synchronized within the same anther, the approach allows for the precise staging and generation of biological replicates from a small number of plants. This enables comparative studies of defined developmental stages of wild-type or mutant lines as well as plants exposed to different stress conditions. While the established protocol was tested for the model species Arabidopsis thaliana, it was also shown to be effective in the horticultural crop kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis), demonstrating its adaptation to non-model species.