Transcription profiling of Arabidopsis or Thlaspi caerulescens roots exposed to deficient, sufficient or excess zinc

A common reference model was used to design the microarray experiment, in which cDNA from T. caerulescens roots exposed to 100 uM (sufficient) zinc was used as the common reference. Every slide was always hybridized with the common reference sample and with a sample from one of the treatments (Arabidopsis or T. caerulescens exposed to deficient, sufficient or excess zinc). The common reference was labeled with the fluorescent dye Cyanine 3 (Cy3) and the treatment samples were labeled with Cyanine 5 (Cy5). As a quality control step we performed a dye-swap hybridization for one sample (from T. caerulescens roots exposed to sufficient zinc).