Abstract
We have screened a cDNA library prepared from tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill. cv. VFNT Cherry) shoot tips for homeobox-containing clones. The isolated cDNA clone THOM1 (tomato homeobox gene 1) contains a homeobox, a leucine zipper motif and and an acidic region. These features support the hypothesis that the THOM1 gene product acts as a transcriptional activator. THOM1 is highly expressed in the vegetative shoot apical meristem, the floral meristem and axillary meristems. Young derivatives of these meristems show similar levels of THOM1 transcripts which decrease with increasing age of the respective tissue. The THOM1 gene is located in the centromere region of chromosome 1 and belongs to a small gene family of the tomato genome.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- HD-Zip protein:
-
protein containing a homeodomain and a leucine zipper
- RFLP:
-
restriction fragment length polymorphism
- SAM:
-
shoot apical meristem
References
Barton, M.K., Poethig, R.S. (1993) Formation of the shoot apical meristem in Arabidopsis thaliana: an analysis of development in the wild type and in the shoot meristemless mutant. Development 119, 823–831
Bellmann, R., Werr, W. (1992) Zmhox 1a, the product of a novel maize homeobox gene, interacts with the Shrunken 26 bp feedback control element. EMBO J. 11, 3367–3374
Brandstädter, J., Roßbach, C., Theres, K. (1994) The pattern of histone H4 expression in the tomato shoot apex changes during development. Planta 192, 69–74
Bürglin, T.R., Finney, M., Coulson, A., Ruvkun, G. (1989) Caenorhabditis elegans has scores of homeobox-containing genes. Nature 341, 239–243
Carabelli, M., Sessa, G., Baima, S., Morelli, G., Ruberti, I. (1993) The Arabidopsis Athb-2 and -4 genes are strongly induced by far-red-rich light. Plant J. 4, 469–479
Caruso, J.L. (1968) Morphogenetic aspects of a leafless mutant in tomato, I. General patterns in development. Am. J. Bot. 55, 1169–1176
Chomczynski, P., Sacchi, N. (1987) Single-step method of RNA isolation by acid guanidinium thiocyanate-phenol-chloroform extraction. Anal. Biochem. 162, 156–159
Desplan, C., Theis, J., O'Farrell, P.H. (1988) The sequence specifity of homeodomain-DNA interaction. Cell 54, 1081–1090
Devereux, J., Haeberli, P., Smithies, O. (1984) A comprehensive set of sequence analysis programs for the VAX. Nucleic Acids Res. 12, 387–395
Gehring, W.J. (1987) Homeo boxes in the study of development. Science 236, 1245–1252
Gehring, W.J. (1992) The homeobox in perspective. TIBS 17, 277–280
Harvey, R.P., Melton, D.A. (1988) Microinjection of synthetic Xhox-1A homeobox mRNA dirupts somite formation in developing Xenopus embryos. Cell 53, 687–697
Hoey, T, Levine, M. (1988) Divergent homeo box proteins recognize similar DNA sequences in Drosophila. Nature 332, 858–861
Kissinger, C.R., Liu, B., Martin-Blanco, E., Kornberg, T.B., Pabo, C.O. (1990) Crystal structure of an engrailed homeodomainDNA complex at a 2.8 Å resolution: A framework for understanding homeodomain-DNA interactions. Cell 63, 579–590
Köhler, S., Coraggio, I., Becker, D., Salamini, F. (1992) Pattern of expression of meristem-specific cDNA clones of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Planta 186, 227–235
Lander, E.S., Green, P., Abrahamson, J., Barlow, A., Daly, M.J., Lincoln, S.E., Newburg, L. (1987) Mapmaker: an interactive computer package for constructing primary genetic linkage maps of experimental and natural populations. Genomics 1, 174–181
Landschulz, W.H., Johnson, P.S., McKnight, S.L. (1988) The leucine zipper: A hypothetical structure common to a new class of DNA binding proteins. Science 240, 1759–1764
Le Mouellic, H., Lallemand, Y., Brulet, P. (1992) Homeosis in the mouse induced by a null mutation in the Hox-3.1 gene. Cell 69, 251–264
Lyndon, R.F. (1990) Plant development. Unwin Hyman, London
Mayer, U., Torres Ruiz, R.A., Berleth, T., Miséra, S., Jürgens, G. (1991) Mutations affecting body organization in the Arabidopsis embryo. Nature 353, 402–407
Medford, J.I., Elmer, J.S., Klee, H.J. (1991) Molecular cloning and characterization of genes expressed in shoot apical meristems. Plant Cell 3, 359–370
Medford, J.I., Behringer, F.J., Callos, J.D., Feldman, K.A. (1992) Normal and abnormal development in the Arabidopsis vegetative shoot apex. Plant Cell 4, 631–643
Mitchell, P.J., Tjian, R. (1989) Transcriptional regulation in mammalian cells by sequence-specific DNA binding proteins. Science 245, 371–378
Müller, M., Affolter, M., Leupin, W., Otting, G., Wüthrich, K., Gehring, W.J. (1988) Isolation and sequence-specific DNA binding of the Antennapedia homeodomain. EMBO J. 7, 4299–4304
Otting, G., Qian, Y.Q., Billeter, M., Müller, M., Affolter, M., Gehring, W.J., Wüthrich, K. (1990) Protein-DNA contacts in the structure of a homeodomain-DNA complex determined by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in solution. EMBO J. 9, 3085–3092
Pri-Hadash, A., Hareven, D., Lifschitz, E. (1992) A meristem-related gene from tomato encodes a dUTPase: analysis of expression in vegetative and floral meristems. Plant Cell 4, 149–159
Qian, Y.Q., Billeter, M., Otting, G., Müller, M., Gehring, W.J., Wüthrich, K. (1989) The structure of the Antennapedia homeodomain determined by NMR spectroscopy in solution: comparison with prokaryotic repressors. Cell 59, 573–580
Ruberti, I., Sessa, G., Lucchetti, S., Morelli, G. (1991) A novel class of plant proteins containing a homeodomain with a closely linked leucine zipper motif. EMBO J. 10, 1787–1791
Sambrook, J., Fritsch, E.F., Maniatis, T. (1989) Molecular cloning: A laboratory manual, 2nd edn., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, New York
Schena, M., Davis, R.W. (1992) HD-Zip proteins: Members of an Arabidopsis homeodomain protein superfamily. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 89, 3894–3898
Schena, M., Lloyd, A.M., Davis, R.W (1993) The HAT4 gene of Arabidopsis encodes a developmental regulator. Genes Devel. 7, 367–379
Schulz, B., Banuett, F., Dahl, M., Schlesinger, R., Schäfer, W., Martin, T., Herskowitz, I., Kahmann, R. (1990) The b alleles of U. maydis, whose combinations program pathogenic development, code for polypeptides containing a homeodomain-related motif. Cell 60, 295–306
Schummer, M., Scheurlen, I., Schaller, C., Galliot, B. (1992) HOM/HOX homeobox genes are present in hydra (Chlorohydra viridissima) and are differentially expressed during regeneration. EMBO J. 11, 1815–1823
Scott, M.P., Tamkum, J,W., Hartzell, G.W. (1989) The structure and function of the homeodomain. Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 989, 25–48
Sessa, G., Morelli, G., Ruberti, I. (1993) The Athb-1 and -2 HD-Zip domains homodimerize forming complexes of different DNA binding specificities. EMBO J. 12, 3507–3517
Shabde, M., Murashige, T. (1977) Hormonal requirements of excised Dianthus caryophyllus L. shoot apical meristem in vitro. Am. J. Bot. 64, 443–448
Shahar, T., Hennig, N., Gutfinger, T., Hareven, D., Lifschitz, E. (1992) The tomato 66.3-kD polyphenoloxidase gene: molecular identification and developmental expression. Plant Cell 4, 135–147
Shepard, J.C.W., McGinnis, W, Carrasco, A.E., De Robertis, E.M., Gehring, W.J. (1984) Fly and frog homeo domains show homologies with yeast mating type regulatory proteins. Nature 310, 70–71
Simon, R. (1990) Isolierung Apex-spezifischer Gene von Lycopersicon esculentum M., Ph.D thesis, Universität Köln, Köln, Germany
Sinha, N.R., Williams, R.E., Hake, S. (1993) Overexpression of the maize homeo box gene, KNOTTED-1, causes a switch from determinate to indeterminate cell fates. Genes Devel. 7, 787–795
Smith, L.G., Greene, B., Veit, B., Hake, S. (1992) A dominant mutation in the maize homeobox gene, Knotted-1, causes its ectopic expression in leaf cells with altered fates. Development 116, 21–30
Steeves, T.A., Sussex, I.M. (1989) Patterns in plant development, 2nd edn., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Sussex, I.M. (1989) Developmental programming of the shoot meristem. Cell 56, 225–229
Tanksley, S.D., Ganal, M.W., Prince, J.P., de Vincente, M.C., Bonierbale, M.W., Broun, P., Fulton, T.M., Giovannoni, J.J., Grandillo, S., Martin, G.B., Messeguer, R., Miller, J.C., Miller, L., Paterson, A.H., Pineda, O., Röder, M.S., Wing, R.A., Wu, W., Young, N.D. (1992) High density molecular linkage maps of the tomato and potato genomes. Genetics 132, 1141–1160
Vollbrecht, E., Veit, B., Sinha, N., Hake, S. (1991) The developmental gene Knotted-1 is a member of a maize homeobox gene family. Nature 350, 241–243
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The authors thank Dr. Steven Tanksley (Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., USA) for providing the segregating F2 population and a framework data set. We are also grateful to Drs. Peter Starlinger, Wolfgang Werr (Institut für Genetik, Universität zu Köln, Germany) and Francesco Salamini (MPI für Züchtungsforschung, Köln, Germany) for critical reading of the manuscript, and members of the laboratory for useful discussions. This work was supported by the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Meißner, R., Theres, K. Isolation and characterization of the tomato homeobox gene THOM1 . Planta 195, 541–547 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00195713
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00195713