ALBANY, CALIFORNIA
Hake Lab, Plant Gene Expression Center

ZmKin1, a CLAVATA1-like sequence from maize, maps near two QTL for tassel long branch number

— Lunde, C; Schultz, J; Bommert, P; Rezapour, M; Rocheford, T; Hake, S

We mapped the CLAVATA1 (CLV1)-like sequence ZmKin1 from maize to bin 7.00, 6.6cM proximal to umc1672 and 11cM distal of asg8, using the 94 IBM mapping kit lines available from the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Maize Mapping Project. Its location at position 50.4 places it between two QTL, the closest marker to one being umc1426 (position 47.8) and the closest marker to the other being bnlg2132 (position 53.5). Each of these QTL is responsible for variation in tassel long branch number and both have a LOD score of 2.7. Phylogenetic analysis places ZmKin1 in one of two maize CLV1-like subfamilies. Its closest known sequence is the rice gene OsLRK1 (Bommert et al. 2005, Development, in press) and plants expressing antisense constructs of this gene develop extra floral organs (Kim, C. et al. Plant Science (2000) 152:17–26. The fasciated ear2 gene (fea2) is orthologous to CLAVATA2 from Arabidopsis and fea2 mutants develop fasciated ears; however, no known fasciated mutants map to bin 7.00. However, fea2 mutants do have wider tassel rachises (Taguchi-Shiobara et al. Genes & Development 2001(15):2755–2766). RNA blot analysis shows that ZmKin1 is expressed in developing tissues, including 1–2cm tassels, 1cm ears, 1.5cm ears, shoot apices and leaf primordia, but not in mature leaves. Given that ZmKin1 may and fea2 does affect tassels, other maize CLAVATA orthologues may influence inflorescence meristem development as well.


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