[Functional analysis of rice P0491E01 gene regulating anther development].

The rice P0491E01 gene shares high similarity in amino acid sequence with Arabidopsis gene AtDAD1 (DEFECTIVE IN ANTHER DEHISCENCE1) which plays a key role in the biosynthesis of jasmonic acid. In this paper, we investigated the function of this gene in the anther development of rice using RNA interference strategy. An exon fragment of 263bp was cloned from genomic DNA of P0491E01 to construct RNAi vector pP0491RNAi. Then, pP0491RNAi was transformed into O. sativa japonica by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and ten transgenic plants were obtained. GUS-staining and PCR analysis confirmed that T-DNA was integrated into rice genome. Three of the transgenic plants were male sterile, and the other transgenic plants showed reduced fertility. Cytological observation indicated that anther development in the early stage of male sterile transgenic plants was normal, however, the microspores could not develop into mature pollen grains. Further investigations of the expression of P0491E01 gene in these transgenic lines by RT-PCR revealed that its transcription was significantly reduced. The results suggest that P0491E01 may play an important role during the late stage of anther development.