Comprehensive Phenotypic Analyses of Transgenic Rice that Express the Chimeric Repressor

Abstract

Transcription factors (TFs), which regulate the first step of the gene expression, affect various biofunction. Therefore, elucidation of the function of each TF will lead to identify the relationship between genes and the biofunction that is regulated by a gene. However, gene redundancy of TFs often interferes such efforts. We have developed a novel gene silencing technology (CRES-T), which can overcome the gene redundancy and induces loss-of-function phenotype of TF by expressing chimeric repressor of the TF. Using CRES-T, we have clarified function of various TFs in Arabidopsis thaliana, a model plant in dicot.
In this study, we are applying the CRES-T to rice, a model plant in monocot, using rice full-length TF cDNAs. We have created 314 kinds of transgenic rice that express chimeric repressor of nine TF families including bZIP, Myb, NAC and others. We here report intriguing phenotypes and comparative analysis of TFs between rice and Arabidopsis.