Screening of partners of ASYMMETRIC LEAVES2

Abstract

Building of the plant architecture is achieved by the highly organized growth and differentiation of cells. Arabidopsis mutant, asymmetric leaves2 (as2), exhibited ectopic leaf lobe and altered leaf venation pattern in asymmetric manner. Shoot regeneration potency from leaves of as2 mutant is higher than that of wild type. Leaf is generated and differentiated from totipotent shoot apical meristem (SAM). Furthermore class1-KNOX genes which encode SAM-related homeobox proteins were expressed ectopically in developed leaves of as2 mutant. Thus AS2 may be involved in spatially and/or temporally proper cell differentiation and also in direct or indirect repression of class1-KNOX. AS2 gene encodes a protein that belonged to a novel family (named AS2 family). AS2 interacted with Myb-like transcription factor ASYMMETRIC LEAVES1. To further understand how AS2 regulates the differentiation of cells and the expression of class1-KNOX, we carried out screening of another factors that interacted with AS2 physically and/or genetically.