OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE

This Article Free via Open Access: OA OA Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Data OA All Versions of this Article: 151/3/1175    most recent pp.109.143867v1 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 Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Google Scholar Articles by Karas, B. Articles by Szczyglowski, K. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Karas, B. Articles by Szczyglowski, K. Pubmed/NCBI databases Protein Agricola Articles by Karas, B. Articles by Szczyglowski, K.

Conservation of Lotus and Arabidopsis Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins Reveals New Players in Root Hair Development^1,[W],[OA]

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Southern Crop Protection and Food Research Centre, London, Ontario, Canada N5V 4T3 (B.K., L.A., C.J., K.S.); Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7 (B.K., K.S.); Kazusa DNA Research Institute, Kisarazu, Chiba 292–0812, Japan (S.S., S.T.); and Department of Biological Sciences, Tokyo University, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113–0033, Japan (M.K.)

Basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins constitute a large family of transcriptional regulators in plants. Although they have been shown to play important roles in a wide variety of developmental processes, relatively few have been functionally characterized. Here, we describe the map-based cloning of the Lotus japonicus ROOTHAIRLESS1 (LjRHL1) locus. Deleterious mutations in this locus prevent root hair development, which also aborts root hair-dependent colonization of the host root by nitrogen-fixing bacteria. We show that the LjRHL1 gene encodes a presumed bHLH transcription factor that functions in a nonredundant manner to control root hair development in L. japonicus. Homology search and cross-species complementation experiments defined three members of the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) bHLH protein family, At2g24260, At4g30980, and At5g58010, as functionally equivalent to LjRHL1. Curiously, At2g24260 and At4g30980 mRNA species accumulate independently from the known positive regulators of root hair cell fate, while all three genes act in a partially redundant manner to regulate root hair development in Arabidopsis.

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: Krzysztof Szczyglowski (szczyglowskik{at}agr.gc.ca).

^[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.109.143867

^* Corresponding author; e-mail szczyglowskik{at}agr.gc.ca.

Received June 29, 2009; accepted August 3, 2009; published August 12, 2009.