Isolation and characterization of a rice cysteine protease gene, OsCP1, using T-DNA gene-trap system.

The T-DNA gene-trap system has been efficiently used to elucidate gene functions in plants. We report here a functional analysis of a cysteine protease gene, OsCP1, isolated from a pool of T-DNA insertional rice. GUS assay with the T-DNA tagged line indicated that the OsCP1 promoter was highly active in the rice anther. Sequence analysis revealed that the deduced amino acid sequence of OsCP1 was homologous to those of papain family cysteine proteases containing the highly conserved interspersed amino acid motif, ERFNIN. This result suggested that the gene encodes a cysteine protease in rice. We also identified a suppressed mutant from T2 progeny of the T-DNA tagged line. The mutant showed a significant defect in pollen development. Taken together, the results demonstrated that OsCP1 is a cysteine protease gene that might play an important role in pollen development.