Abstract
The leaf in rice plant develops almost in one dimension, because cell division is largely restricted in its base. Therefore, it is easy to follow the process of vascular development in the leaf. We screened rice mutants defective in vascular formation of leaves. As the result, we succeeded in identifying 12 lines of vascular defective mutants.
In this paper we report a mutant showing a defect in leaf venation pattern. In this mutant, the intervals of commissural veins in the leaf are narrow and almost 10% of them are aggregated. Chromosomal walking revealed the causal gene of the mutant. This gene was unique in rice and predicted to encode a LRR-RK. In Arabidopsis, there are 5 homologous genes. Based on results obtained so far, we discuss the function of the LRR-RK in commissural vein formation.
