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Rice NAC proteins act as homodimers and heterodimers

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Abstract

Members of the NAM-ATAF-CUC (NAC) protein family are plant-specific transcription factors that contain a highly conserved N-terminal NAC-domain and diverse C-terminal regions. They have been implicated in plant development and abiotic stress responses. To identify interacters of rice NAC-domain proteins (OsNACs), we performed yeast two-hybrid screening of rice cDNA library using OsNAC5 as a bait, and the results showed that OsNAC5 interacts with other OsNACs including itself. To delineate an interacting domain, a series of deletion constructs of four OsNACs were made and transformed into yeast in various combinations. The results revealed that the conserved NAC domain of OsNACs plays a primary role in homodimer and heterodimer formation, and a part of C-terminal sequence is also necessary for the interaction. In vitro pull-down assays using recombinant OsNAC proteins verified the dimer formations, together suggesting that OsNACs may act by forming homodimers and/or heterodimers in plants.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Korea, through the Crop Functional Genomics Center (CG2111 to J.-K.K) and Biogreen21 (to J.-K.K).

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Correspondence to Ju-Kon Kim.

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Jeong, J.S., Park, Y.T., Jung, H. et al. Rice NAC proteins act as homodimers and heterodimers. Plant Biotechnol Rep 3, 127–134 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11816-009-0081-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11816-009-0081-z

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