The microarray analysis revealed candidate genes for the target of the ASYMMETRIC LEAVES2

Abstract

Leaves are generated as lateral organs from a shoot apical meristem and develop along the axes, proximal-distal, adaxial-abaxial and medial-lateral axes. The ASYMMETRIC LEAVES2 (AS2) and AS1 play important roles to establish these axes to produce flat and symmetric leaves. Both of AS2 and AS1 are thought to be transcriptional repressor of certain genes including class 1 KNOX genes, BP, KNAT2 and KNAT6. Here we report the candidate genes for the target of AS2. Microarray and clustering analysis revealed that 48 genes including abaxial factor ETTIN (ETT), KANADI2 (KAN2) and YABBY5 (YAB5) are negatively regulated by both AS2 and AS1. Levels of expression of ETT, KAN2 and YAB5 in as2 bp knat2 knat6 quadruple mutant were higher than those in wild-type. These results suggest that regulation of ETT, KAN2 and YAB5 by AS2 and AS1 are independent of that of class 1 KNOX.