Data driven approach to auxin transcriptomic response of Arabidopsis thaliana root cells
As shown in Figure 1, thanks to high throughput data crossed with GO terms is possible to have a complete profile map of the metabolic behaviour of the cell responding to auxin and the amplitude of down- or up-regulation of the genes. Furthermore, the transcriptional map allows visualizing which processes are regulated and the amplitude of cellular response. The fold-change-specific expression information of some genes, correlated with specific cis-regulatory elements (Figure 2), could suggest the promoter strength when induced by auxin.
Conclusions. The experiments shown in this report are relatively simple . The strength of their approach lies in the bioinformatics and in the analysis in the aftermath that could allow scientists to a more comprehensive knowledge of the transcriptomic response. In silico analysis is fundamental to approach data produced form experimental science and allow scientists to extract much information depending how, the data, is treated.
A weak point of the work is that in this case root cells have been used as a population without type cell distinctions. However, this analysis, made on animal or prokaryote cells, could help to better understand specific cell response patterns and let us to identify new genetic regulatory elements with specific response amplitude under exogenous stimuli. The new acquired information could be used to design new plasmid promoters and find pharmacological targets to inhibit specific pathways in abnormal cell behaviour.
References
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