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Light restored root growth of Arabidopsis with constitutive ethylene response

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Abstract

Ethylene response factor (ERF) is an important component in ethylene or pathogen-induced defensive response of plants. However, physiological effects of ERF on plants have not been fully elucidated. We previously identified an ERF gene, OsERF1, in rice. It up-regulated ethylene-responsive genes expression and influenced growth and development of the transgenic Arabidopsis. Here, we report that similar to other seedlings with constitutive ethylene response, OsERF1 seedlings were suppressed in their root growth. Interestingly, the suppressed root growth was restorable by light irradiation. Detailed analysis showed that OsERF1 inhibited cell elongation without influencing cell number in hypocotyls and leaves of the transgenic Arabidopsis. In addition, homozygous OsERF1 was fatal and heterozygous OsERF1 was harmful in Arabidopsis. These findings expand our understanding of ERF.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the Opening Project of State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics & Germplasm Enhancement (ZW2008005), Nanjing Agricultural University. We thank Professor Yuxin Hu and Dr. Jiangshu Liu, in Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for their help in experiments.

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Correspondence to Guohua Xu or Tai Wang.

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Communicated by J.-H. Liu.

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Hu, Y., Chang, C., Xu, G. et al. Light restored root growth of Arabidopsis with constitutive ethylene response. Acta Physiol Plant 33, 667–674 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-010-0587-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-010-0587-6

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