Reference "Sequence relationships, conserved domains, and expression patterns for maize homologs of the polycomb group genes E(z), esc, and E(Pc)"

Reference ID

7580

Title

Sequence relationships, conserved domains, and expression patterns for maize homologs of the polycomb group genes E(z), esc, and E(Pc)

Source

Plant physiology, 2002, vol. 128, pp. 1332-1345

Authors (7)

Springer-N-M	Danilevskaya-O-N
Hermon-P	Helentjaris-T-G
Phillips-R-L	Kaeppler-H-F
Kaeppler-S-M

Abstract

Polycomb group (PcG) proteins play an important role in developmental and
epigenetic regulation of gene expression in fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster)
and mammals. Recent evidence has shown that Arabidopsis homologs of PcG proteins
are also important for the regulation of plant development. The objective of
this study was to characterize the PcG homologs in maize (Zea mays). The 11
cloned PcG proteins from fruit fly and the Enhancer of zeste [E(z)], extra sex
combs (esc), and Enhancer of Polycomb [E(Pc)] homologs from Arabidopsis were
used as queries to perform TBLASTN searches against the public maize expressed
sequence tag database and the Pioneer Hi-Bred database. Maize homologs were
found for E(z), esc, and E(Pc), but not for Polycomb, pleiohomeotic, Posterior
sex combs, Polycomblike, Additional sex combs, Sex combs on midleg,
polyhometoic, or multi sex combs. Transcripts of the three maize Enhancer of zeste-
like genes, Mez1, Mez2, and Mez3, were detected in all tissues tested, and the
Mez2 transcript is alternatively spliced in a tissue-dependent pattern. Zea mays
fertilization independent endosperm1 (ZmFie1) expression was limited to
developing embryos and endosperms, whereas ZmFie2 expression was found
throughout plant development. The conservation of E(z) and esc homologs across
kingdoms indicates that these genes likely play a conserved role in repressing
gene expression.