Abstract
Abscisic acid (ABA) plays important roles on dormancy. It is known that the abi5 mutant is defective in a bZIP transcription factor that binds to ABRE. However, only fragmentary information has been reported on how the expression profiles differ in abi5. We have performed molecular phenotyping of WT and abi5 seeds by microarray analysis. A statistical cis-element search in highly expressed genes in WT seed revealed ABRE. Combination of ABRE and another elements such as CE or RY showed stronger correlation to high expression in the seed. In abi5, the correlation between ABRE and high expression level is largely weakened. ABRE was also enriched in down-regulated genes in abi5. These results indicate that ABRE functions in ABA inducible expression during seed maturation, and ABI5 plays important roles on expression of those genes. The results were also consistent with the previous in vitro results, confirming our phenotyping to be effective.
