Abstract
Here we report a rice recessive and embryonic lethal mutant, club-shaped embryo1 (cle1), which phenotype is appeared after globular stage, and not observed during WT embryogenesis. We identified three loci are responsible for the phenotype. A positional cloning of cle1 indicated that rice Dicer-like1 (OsDCL1) is a prime candidate, because three different mutations were identified in the three alleles. Expression analysis elucidated that CLE1 specifically expressed in the basal region of WT embryo during 4-6 DAP, and the possible target ARF8 is up-regulated. The expression of OSH1, which is a marker of undifferentiated cells of a ventral presumptive shoot apical meristem region, is not restricted in the ventral region, and detected in overall the basal region in cle1 embryo. These results suggest that the loss of function of OsDCL1 might cause retaining the undifferentiated cells in the overall basal region.
