A novel stress-related gene in developing pepper anthers

To study gene expression patterns and to find genes related with microspore embryogenesis during pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) anther development, mRNA expression patterns were investigated at four developmental stages distinguished according to the size of flower bud, the color of anthers, and the cytological feature of microspores. Through GeneFishing using 120 random primers, 81 genes were found to be differentially expressed as anthers develop. We directly sequenced seven of them, which were either up- or down-regulated at stage 2, since microspores at stage 2 are known to be responsive to the induction signals for microspore embryogenesis. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the isolated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and the comparison of these sequences with the GenBank data indicate that DEG13 is a novel gene, which is highly homologous to a stress-related gene of potato, POACT88 (≈91%) and to alcohol dehydrogenase gene of Arabidopsis (≈70%), whose expression is also tightly related to stresses. In vitro data also showed that DEG13 was more abundantly expressed in heat-treated microspores than in untreated microspores. Here, we report developmental stage-specific gene expression patterns during anther development and a novel stress-related gene, DEG13, which may be involved in microspore embryogenesis in response to heat treatment.