Abstract
Zinc finger protein genes are known to have diverse functions in plants, such as transcription and cytoskeleton organization. In this study, we found that an Arabidopsis zinc finger protein gene was involved in regulating sugar metabolisms. We constructed an inducible RNAi construct of the gene and introduced into Arabidopsis suspension-cultured cells. Suppression of the gene resulted in no proliferation of the cells. Metabolites of the transgenic cells were analyzed by GC-TOF-MS, and the results were subjected to network analysis. The network suggested a change of amounts of myo-inositol, which is one of the precursors in cell wall synthesis. Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer analysis supported the changes in cell walls. Overexpression of the gene in Arabidopsis suspension-cultured cells resulted in an increase of myo-inositol, which rescued the cell growth that was suppressed when myo-inositol was omitted from the medium. These results suggest that the gene is involved in myo-inositol synthesis.
