Abstract
Rice mutant Epi-d1 shows chimeric phenotype, it has normal and dwarf phenotype in a plant. Such unstable phenotypes sometimes appear in 'epigenetic' mutant, but its mechanism is not well known.
For cloning the Epi-d1 gene, we produced 6,000 F2 plants by cross to an Indica cv. Kasalath. The Epi-d1 locus was narrow into 39kb contains D1(G-protein α-subunit) gene.
There was a close resemblance between the dwarf parts of Epi-d1 and d1 loss-of-function mutant, and when allelic test was performed by crossing these two mutants, almost F1 plants showed dwarf phenotype. To compare D1 expression level between dwarf and normal part of Epi-d1, northern hybridization was performed. As a result, D1 expression was not detected in dwarf part although expressed in normal part.
