02998nas a2200349   4500008004100000022001400041245015500055210006900210260000900279300001100288490000600299520188000305100002102185700001902206700001702225700002002242700002402262700002202286700002802308700002102336700002002357700002102377700002102398700002302419700002902442700001602471700001802487700002102505700002402526700001902550856007902569       2012                        eng d  a1932-620300aDevelopment, Characterization and Experimental Validation of a Cultivated Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) Gene Expression Oligonucleotide Microarray.0 aDevelopment Characterization and Experimental Validation of a Cu  c2012  ae458990 v73 aOligonucleotide-based microarrays with accurate gene coverage represent a key strategy for transcriptional studies in orphan species such as sunflower, H. annuus L., which lacks full genome sequences. The goal of this study was the development and functional annotation of a comprehensive sunflower unigene collection and the design and validation of a custom sunflower oligonucleotide-based microarray. A large scale EST (>130,000 ESTs) curation, assembly and sequence annotation was performed using Blast2GO (www.blast2go.de). The EST assembly comprises 41,013 putative transcripts (12,924 contigs and 28,089 singletons). The resulting Sunflower Unigen Resource (SUR version 1.0) was used to design an oligonucleotide-based Agilent microarray for cultivated sunflower. This microarray includes a total of 42,326 features: 1,417 Agilent controls, 74 control probes for sunflower replicated 10 times (740 controls) and 40,169 different non-control probes. Microarray performance was validated using a model experiment examining the induction of senescence by water deficit. Pre-processing and differential expression analysis of Agilent microarrays was performed using the Bioconductor limma package. The analyses based on p-values calculated by eBayes (p<0.01) allowed the detection of 558 differentially expressed genes between water stress and control conditions; from these, ten genes were further validated by qPCR. Over-represented ontologies were identified using FatiScan in the Babelomics suite. This work generated a curated and trustable sunflower unigene collection, and a custom, validated sunflower oligonucleotide-based microarray using Agilent technology. Both the curated unigene collection and the validated oligonucleotide microarray provide key resources for sunflower genome analysis, transcriptional studies, and molecular breeding for crop improvement.1 aFernandez, Paula1 aSoria, Marcelo1 aBlesa, David1 aDirienzo, Julio1 aMoschen, Sebastián1 aRivarola, Máximo1 aClavijo, Bernardo, Jose1 aGonzalez, Sergio1 aPeluffo, Lucila1 aPríncipi, Dario1 aDosio, Guillermo1 aAguirrezabal, Luis1 aGarcia-Garcia, Francisco1 aConesa, Ana1 aHopp, Esteban1 aDopazo, Joaquín1 aHeinz, Ruth, Amelia1 aPaniego, Norma  uhttp://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0045899