Cis-element- and transcriptome-based screening of root hair-specific genes and their functional characterization in Arabidopsis.
Understanding the cellular differentiation of multicellular organisms requires the characterization of genes whose expression is modulated in a cell type-specific manner. The Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) root hair cell is one model for studying cellular differentiation. In this study, root hair cell-specific genes were screened by a series of in silico and experimental filtration procedures. This process included genome-wide screening for genes with a root hair-specific cis-element in their promoters, filtering root-specific genes from the root hair-specific cis-element-containing genes, further filtering of genes that were suppressed in root hair-defective plant lines, and experimental confirmation by promoter assay. These procedures revealed 19 root hair-specific genes, including many protein kinases and cell wall-related genes, most of which have not been characterized thus far. Functional analyses of these root hair-specific genes with loss-of-function mutants and overexpressing transformants revealed that they play roles in hair growth and morphogenesis. This study demonstrates that a defined cis-element can serve as a filter to screen certain cell type-specific genes and implicates many new root hair-specific genes in root hair development.
Won
Su-Kyung
SK
School of Biological Sciences, College of Natural Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Korea.
Lee
Yong-Ju
YJ
Lee
Ha-Yeon
HY
Heo
Yoon-Kyung
YK
Cho
Misuk
M
Cho
Hyung-Taeg
HT
D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D016384:Consensus Sequence; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D010641:Phenotype; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000378:metabolism; D020218:Response Elements
D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins