Technical advances: genome-wide cDNA-AFLP analysis of the Arabidopsis transcriptome

cDNA-AFLP, a technology historically used to identify small numbers of differentially expressed genes, was adapted as a genome-wide transcript profiling method. mRNA levels were assayed in a diverse range of tissues from Arabidopsis thaliana plants grown under a variety of environmental conditions. The resulting cDNA-AFLP fragments were sequenced. By linking cDNA-AFLP fragments to their corresponding mRNAs via these sequences, a database was generated that contained quantitative expression information for up to two-thirds of gene loci in A. thaliana, ecotype Ws. Using this resource, the expression levels of genes, including those with high nucleotide sequence similarity, could be determined in a high-throughput manner merely by comparing cDNA-AFLP profiles with the database. The lengths of cDNA-AFLP fragments inferred from their electrophoretic mobilities correlated well with actual fragment lengths determined by sequencing. In addition, the concentrations of AFLP fragments from single cDNAs were highly correlated, illustrating the validity of cDNA-AFLP as a quantitative, genome-wide, transcript profiling method. cDNA-AFLP profiles were also qualitatively consistent with mRNA profiles obtained from parallel microarray analysis, and with data from previous studies.