OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE

This Article Free via Open Access: OA OA Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Data OA All Versions of this Article: 144/2/1000    most recent pp.107.098558v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (4) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by McSteen, P. Articles by Hake, S. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by McSteen, P. Articles by Hake, S. Agricola Articles by McSteen, P. Articles by Hake, S.

DEVELOPMENT AND HORMONE ACTION

barren inflorescence2 Encodes a Co-Ortholog of the PINOID Serine/Threonine Kinase and Is Required for Organogenesis during Inflorescence and Vegetative Development in Maize^{1,[C],[W],[OA]}

Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802 (P.M., A.S., X.W.); Plant Gene Expression Center, United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, Albany, California 94710 (P.M., C.L., S.H.); and Department of Biology, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri 63121 (S.M., E.K.)

Organogenesis in plants is controlled by meristems. Axillary meristems, which give rise to branches and flowers, play a critical role in plant architecture and reproduction. Maize (Zea mays) and rice (Oryza sativa) have additional types of axillary meristems in the inflorescence compared to Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and thus provide an excellent model system to study axillary meristem initiation. Previously, we characterized the barren inflorescence2 (bif2) mutant in maize and showed that bif2 plays a key role in axillary meristem and lateral primordia initiation in the inflorescence. In this article, we cloned bif2 by transposon tagging. Isolation of bif2-like genes from seven other grasses, along with phylogenetic analysis, showed that bif2 is a co-ortholog of PINOID (PID), which regulates auxin transport in Arabidopsis. Expression analysis showed that bif2 is expressed in all axillary meristems and lateral primordia during inflorescence and vegetative development in maize and rice. Further phenotypic analysis of bif2 mutants in maize illustrates additional roles of bif2 during vegetative development. We propose that bif2/PID sequence and expression are conserved between grasses and Arabidopsis, attesting to the important role they play in development. We provide further support that bif2, and by analogy PID, is required for initiation of both axillary meristems and lateral primordia.

² Present address: Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, 1250 Bellflower Road, Long Beach, CA 90840.

The author responsible for distribution of materials integral to the findings presented in this article in accordance with the policy described in the Instructions for Authors (www.plantphysiol.org) is: Paula McSteen (pcm11{at}psu.edu).

^[C] Some figures in this article are displayed in color online but in black and white in print.

^[W] The online version of this article contains Web-only data.

^[OA] Open Access articles can be viewed online without a subscription.

www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.107.098558

^* Corresponding author; e-mail pcm11{at}psu.edu; fax 814–865–9131.

Received February 26, 2007; accepted April 11, 2007; published April 20, 2007.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				N. N. Rao, K. Prasad, P. R. Kumar, and U. Vijayraghavan Distinct regulatory role for RFL, the rice LFY homolog, in determining flowering time and plant architecture PNAS, March 4, 2008; 105(9): 3646 - 3651. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				F. Bai and D. A. DeMason Hormone interactions and regulation of PsPK2::GUS compared with DR5::GUS and PID::GUS in Arabidopsis thaliana Am. J. Botany, February 1, 2008; 95(2): 133 - 145. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				X. Wu and P. McSteen The role of auxin transport during inflorescence development in maize (Zea mays, Poaceae) Am. J. Botany, November 1, 2007; 94(11): 1745 - 1755. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]