Isolation and characterization of ultraviolet-B response mutants and root morphology mutants from the Rice FOX Lines

Abstract

To identify useful rice gene, we are established rice FOX lines using 13,000 non-redundant rice full-length cDNAs to introduce them into Arabidopsis plants.
To isolate useful rice genes involved in tolerance to UV-B stress, which cause to several damages to plants, we tried to screen UV-B-tolerant mutants from rice FOX lines.
We already isolated 49 UV-B-tolerant mutant candidates in T2-generation from ca. 7,000 lines by root bending assay screening. The isolated 50 cDNAs were retransformed into Arabidopsis. And we confirmed the phenotypes of 28 T2-retransformed lines. So far 15 T2-retransformed lines showed long root phenotype regardless UV-B irradiation. These lines contained unknown function genes or stress-signal related genes (CDPK and CIPK). One T2-retransformed line, containing Auxin-regulated gene, showed an altered UV-B response at bending of root.
This research is supported by the Special coordination funds for Promoting Science and Technology entitled Rapid identification of useful traits using rice full-length cDNAs.