Cold response in olive tree; A RNAseq study

Abstract

Low temperature severely affects plant growth and development. Several plant species have evolved an adaptive response, named cold acclimation. In order to study this response in olive tree (Olea europaea), we maintained twomonths- old vegetative propagated olive trees cv. Picual at low temperature (14h at 10ºC with light, 10h at 4ºC at the dark) for 15 days. Control plants were maintained in field growing conditions. Cold stress symptoms were observed after the first 24h as sagging leaf and biochemical stress markers. After 5 days the plants were observed completely recovered. We extracted RNA from leaves of three control plants and the same number from 24h and 10 days cold stressed plants. We pooled RNA and made two cDNA libraries for sequencing. We used Illumina HiSeq 1000 sequencer.