Gene Expression Pattern in Olive Tree Organs (Olea europaea L.)

The olive tree (Olea europaea L.) was one of the first plant species in history to be domesticated. Throughout olive domestication, gene expression has undergone drastic changes that may affect tissue/organ-specific genes. This is an RNA-seq study of the transcriptomic activity of different tissues/organs from adult olive tree cv. “Picual” under field conditions. This analysis unveiled 53,456 genes with expression in at least one tissue, 32,030 of which were expressed in all organs and 19,575 were found to be potential housekeeping genes. In addition, the specific expression pattern in each plant part was studied. The flower was clearly the organ with the most exclusively expressed genes, 3529, many of which were involved in reproduction. Many of these organ-specific genes are generally involved in regulatory activities and have a nuclear protein localization, except for leaves, where there are also many genes with a plastid localization. This was also observed in stems to a lesser extent. Moreover, pathogen defense and immunity pathways were highly represented in roots. These data show a complex pattern of gene expression in different organs, and provide relevant data about housekeeping and organ-specific genes in cultivated olive.