Identification and characterization of Mini1, a gene regulating rice shoot development

The aerial parts of higher plants are generated from the shoot apical meristem （SAM）. In this study, we isolated a small rice （Oryza sativa L.） mutant that showed premature termination of shoot development and was named mini rice 1 （mini1）. The mutant was first isolated from a japonica cultivar Zhonghua11 （ZH11） subjected to ethyl methanesulfonate （EMS） treatment. With bulked segregant analysis （BSA） and mapbased cloning method, Mini1 gene was finally fine-mapped to an interval of 48.6 kb on chromosome 9. Sequence analyses revealed a single base substitution from G to A was found in the region, which resulted in an amino acid change from Gly to Asp. The candidate gene Os09go363900 was predicted to encode a putative adhesion of calyx edges protein ACE （putative HOTHEAD precursor） and genetic complementation experiment confirmed the identity of Minil. Os09go36：3900 contains glucose-methanol-choline （GMC） oxidoreductase and NAD（P）-binding Rossmann-like domain, and exhibits high similarity to Arabidopsis HOTHEAD （HTH）. Expression analysis indicated Minil was highly expressed in young shoots but lowly in roots and the expression level of most genes involved in auxin biosynthesis and signal transduction were reduced in mutant. We conclude that Mini1 plays an important role in maintaining SAM activity and promoting shoot development in rice.