The transcriptome landscape of developing barley seeds reveals H3K27me3 dynamics in endosperm tissues

Abstract

Cereal grains are an important food and feed. To provide comprehensive spatiotemporal information about biological processes in developing seeds of cultivated barley, we performed a transcriptomic study of the embryo, endosperm, and seed maternal tissues collected from 4 to 32 days after pollination. Weighted gene co-expression network and motif enrichment analyses pointed out specific groups of genes and transcription factors with possible impacts on regulating barley seed tissue development. We defined a set of tissue-specific marker genes and families of transcription factors for functional studies of the pathways controlling barley grain development. Assessment of selected groups of chromatin regulators revealed that epigenetic processes are highly dynamic and likely to play a major role during barley endosperm development. Repressive modification H3K27me3 is globally reduced in endosperm tissues and at specific developmental and storage compound genes. Altogether, this atlas uncovers the complexity of the developmental regulation of gene expression in barley grains. TeaserSpatiotemporal profiling of developing barley seeds revealed loss of H3K27me3 and changes in gene expression in endosperm.