TY - JOUR
T1 - Expression of RNA-Interference/Antisense Transgenes by the Cognate Promoters of Target Genes Is a Better Gene-Silencing Strategy to Study Gene Functions in Rice
AU - Li, Jing
AU - Jiang, Dagang
AU - Zhou, Hai
AU - Li, Feng
AU - Yang, Jiawei
AU - Hong, Laifa
AU - Fu, Xiao
AU - Li, Zhibin
AU - Liu, Zhenlan
AU - Li, Jianming
AU - Zhuang, Chuxiong
N1 - Publisher copyright:
© 2011 Li et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2011/3/3
Y1 - 2011/3/3
N2 - Antisense and RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated gene silencing systems
are powerful reverse genetic methods for studying gene function. Most
RNAi and antisense experiments used constitutive promoters to drive the
expression of RNAi/antisense transgenes; however, several reports showed
that constitutive promoters were not expressed in all cell types in
cereal plants, suggesting that the constitutive promoter systems are not
effective for silencing gene expression in certain tissues/organs. To
develop an alternative method that complements the constitutive promoter
systems, we constructed RNAi and/or antisense transgenes for four rice
genes using a constitutive promoter or a cognate promoter of a selected
rice target gene and generated many independent transgenic lines.
Genetic, molecular, and phenotypic analyses of these RNAi/antisense
transgenic rice plants, in comparison to previously-reported transgenic
lines that silenced similar genes, revealed that expression of the
cognate promoter-driven RNAi/antisense transgenes resulted in novel
growth/developmental defects that were not observed in transgenic lines
expressing constitutive promoter-driven gene-silencing transgenes of the
same target genes. Our results strongly suggested that expression of
RNAi/antisense transgenes by cognate promoters of target genes is a
better gene-silencing approach to discovery gene function in rice.
AB - Antisense and RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated gene silencing systems
are powerful reverse genetic methods for studying gene function. Most
RNAi and antisense experiments used constitutive promoters to drive the
expression of RNAi/antisense transgenes; however, several reports showed
that constitutive promoters were not expressed in all cell types in
cereal plants, suggesting that the constitutive promoter systems are not
effective for silencing gene expression in certain tissues/organs. To
develop an alternative method that complements the constitutive promoter
systems, we constructed RNAi and/or antisense transgenes for four rice
genes using a constitutive promoter or a cognate promoter of a selected
rice target gene and generated many independent transgenic lines.
Genetic, molecular, and phenotypic analyses of these RNAi/antisense
transgenic rice plants, in comparison to previously-reported transgenic
lines that silenced similar genes, revealed that expression of the
cognate promoter-driven RNAi/antisense transgenes resulted in novel
growth/developmental defects that were not observed in transgenic lines
expressing constitutive promoter-driven gene-silencing transgenes of the
same target genes. Our results strongly suggested that expression of
RNAi/antisense transgenes by cognate promoters of target genes is a
better gene-silencing approach to discovery gene function in rice.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79952296948&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0017444
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0017444
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 21408609
AN - SCOPUS:79952296948
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 6
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 3
M1 - e17444
ER -
