AsianScientist (Dec. 22, 2015) – Scientists have pinpointed a gene that determines the extent of branching in trees. The insight into plant architecture, which is important for plant breeding and food production, has been published in The Plant Cell.
When you are sitting in the shade of towering trees, do you ever think about how they extend their long, luxuriant branches? How those little buds develop into boughs and twigs? For decades scientists have been working on this problem and successfully identified several important genes (such as RAX1, RAX2, RAX3) that regulate plant shoot branching. However, most parts of this mechanism remain unknown.
Professor Qin Genji of the School of Life Sciences and his team have reported a novel gene that decides the extent of branching, telling us more about this long-standing puzzle.
The pinpointed new gene is called EXB1 (Excessive Branches1). In their experiment, the researchers introduced an activating EXB1 into Arabidopsis. The resulting plant (designated exb1-D) exhibited excessive branches. When researchers disrupted EXB1, the resultant plant showed defeated shoot branching. Both experiments confirmed the pivotal role of EXB1.
The scientists further explored the working mechanism of EXB1. By downregulating RAX genes in the EXB1 overexpression mutant, the scientists returned the excessive branching plant to a less branching one. The result suggested that EXB1 might work through regulating RAX genes. Previously, RAX genes (RAX1, RAX2, and RAX3) had been proved to control shoot branching.
The article can be found at: Guo et al. (2015) The WRKY Transcription Factor WRKY71/EXB1 Controls Shoot Branching by Transcriptionally Regulating RAX Genes in Arabidopsis.
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Source: Peking University.
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