EST (Expressed Sequence Tag): A Technique for Identification of Plant Secondary Metabolite Genes

Abstract

Plants contain various secondary metabolites which are synthesized as a defense mechanism, and expression of genes’ synthesizing these metabolites varies with the developmental age of plant and also between tissue to tissue. Identification of these expressed genes helps in unraveling the biosynthetic pathways of different metabolites in plants. Many molecular biology techniques can be used for identification of these expressed genes, but expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are nowadays widely used due to cost-effectiveness and efficiency as compared to other techniques. After sequencing the ESTs, databases such as NCBI, EMBL, etc. can be used for further comparison of sequences which help in identification of genes. These ESTs are an attractive tool for decoding the metabolic pathways rather than whole genome sequencing.