Plant Cell 1998 Jun;10(6):1043-54

The Arabidopsis abscisic acid response locus ABI4 encodes an APETALA 2 domain protein.

 

Finkelstein RR, Wang ML, Lynch TJ, Rao S, Goodman HM

Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA. finkelst@lifesci.lscf.ucsb.edu

Arabidopsis abscisic acid (ABA)-insensitive abi4 mutants have pleiotropic defects in seed development, including decreased sensitivity to ABA inhibition of germination and altered seed-specific gene expression. This phenotype is consistent with a role for ABI4 in regulating seed responses to ABA and/or seed-specific signals. We isolated the ABI4 gene by positional cloning and confirmed its identity by complementation analysis. The predicted protein product shows homology to a plant-specific family of transcriptional regulators characterized by a conserved DNA binding domain, the APETALA 2 domain. The single mutant allele identified has a single base pair deletion, resulting in a frameshift that should disrupt the C-terminal half of the protein but leave the presumed DNA binding domain intact. Expression analyses showed that despite the seed-specific nature of the mutant phenotype, ABI4 expression is not seed specific.

 

MeSH Terms:

  • Abscisic Acid/pharmacology*
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Arabidopsis/metabolism
  • Arabidopsis/genetics*
  • Arabidopsis/drug effects
  • Base Sequence
  • Chromosome Mapping*
  • Gamma Rays
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant/physiology*
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant/drug effects
  • Genes, Structural, Plant
  • Genetic Complementation Test
  • Homeodomain Proteins/genetics
  • Homeodomain Proteins/chemistry
  • Homeodomain Proteins/biosynthesis*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Mutagenesis
  • Nuclear Proteins/genetics
  • Nuclear Proteins/chemistry
  • Nuclear Proteins/biosynthesis*
  • Plant Proteins/biosynthesis
  • Plants, Transgenic
  • Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length
  • Recombination, Genetic
  • Seeds/physiology
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
  • Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Substances:

  • Abscisic Acid
  • Plant Proteins
  • Nuclear Proteins
  • Homeodomain Proteins
  • APETALA2 protein

PMID: 9634591, UI: 98299844