Abstract
The nuclear envelope, which separates cytoplasm and nucleoplasm in eukaryotes, is lined with nuclear lamina from nucleoplasmic side. It has been shown that the animal nuclear lamina has a mesh like-structure composed of a lamin protein, an intermediate filament, and contributes to maintenance of nuclear envelope structure and diverse nuclear functions. However, plants have no homologues of lamin and few homologues of nuclear envelope proteins in their genomes. This suggests that plants have evolved their own nuclear architecture. We aim to reveal the molecular basis of nuclear structure in higher plants. We generated transgenic Arabidopsis plants that stably expressed nucleus-targeted GFP to visualize nuclei. To screen the mutants having abnormal shapes of nuclei, the transformants were treated with EMS. We found that one of isolated mutants, which has spherical and smaller nuclei, had a base substitution mutation in LINC1 gene that encodes a coiled-coil protein localized at nuclear periphery for regulating nuclear morphology. The other mutants we isolated are now being investigated.
