Description
Plants initially undergo a period of vegetative development, in which it produces leaves from shoot apical meristem (SAM) and roots from the root apical meristem. Later in development, the SAM undergoes a change in fate and enters reproductive development called as floral transition, producing flowers and seeds. Our understanding of the molecular and genetic mechanisms that underlie reproductive development in plants has increased tremendously in the past decade, essentially through the work on Arabidopsis. In this study, we have analyzed the spatial and temporal gene expression in various tissues/organs and developmental stages of rice using microarray technology to identify the genes differentially expressed during various stages of reproductive development.