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Identification of a pollen-specific gene, SlCRK1 (RFK2) in tomato

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Abstract

Plant receptor-like kinases (RLKs) are proteins that are involved in the regulation of development, hormone signaling, abiotic, and biotic stress responses. It has been suggested that cysteine-rich receptor-like kinases (CRKs), which are one of the largest RLK groups, is significant in pathogen defense and programmed cell death. The CRK1 gene is isolated and characterized from tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.). The SlCRK1 has two C-X8-C-X2-C motifs: a trans-membrane region and a kinase domain similar to other CRKs. The semi-quantitative RT-PCR exhibits the specific expression of SlCRK1 in the flower, but not in the root, leaf, seed, and fruit of the tomato. In addition, SlCRK1 exhibits pollen-specific expression in the floral organ. SlCRK1 has pollen-specific cis-acting elements in the promoter region, and its promoter has pollen-specific activity in the homozygous transgenic plants of tomato and Arabidopsis as confirmed through histochemical GUS assays. Moreover, the expression of SlCRK1 is not detected via stress treatment or hormone treatment. In this study, SlCRK1 from tomato is characterized and its promoter can be useful in developing transgenic plants with foreign genes that should be expressed in pollens.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the Next-Generation BioGreen 21 Program (grant no. PJ008200), Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea, and the KRIBB Research Initiative Program.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest in the content of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plant Systems Engineering Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejon, 305-806, Republic of Korea

    Woong Bom Kim, So Young Yi, Chan Ju Lim, Hyun A. Kim, Hyun A. Jang, Ha Yeon Lee & Suk-Yoon Kwon

  2. Department of Biology, School of Bioscience & Biotechnology, Chungnam National University, Daejon, 305-764, Republic of Korea

    Woong Bom Kim, Hyun A. Jang & Youn-Il Park

  3. Plant Genomics and Breeding Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-921, Republic of Korea

    Sang-Keun Oh

  4. Biosystems and Bioengineering Program, University of Science and Technology, Daejon, 305-350, Republic of Korea

    Hyun A. Kim & Suk-Yoon Kwon

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  1. Woong Bom Kim
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Correspondence to Suk-Yoon Kwon.

Electronic supplementary material

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13258_2013_168_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Supplementary Fig. 1 Expression level of SlCRK1 during stress conditions and hormone treatments in tomato plants. Transcription levels of the SlCRK1 gene at various time intervals after the abiotic stress treatments, exogenous application of plant hormones, pathogen treatment (DC3000), and various growth stages (hour: h, week: w)

13258_2013_168_MOESM2_ESM.pdf

Supplementary Fig. 2 Histochemical GUS assay of the wild-type tomato and Arabidopsis. The tomato flower and pollen from a nine-week-old plant and four-week-old Arabidopsis plants are presented. The scale bars in flower are 1 mm and the bars in pollen are 50 μm

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Kim, W.B., Yi, S.Y., Oh, SK. et al. Identification of a pollen-specific gene, SlCRK1 (RFK2) in tomato. Genes Genom 36, 303–311 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-013-0168-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-013-0168-3

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