水稻E2F3转录因子在生长发育中的作用

he E2F transcript factors are involved in DNA synthesis and replication to regulate the cell cycle in animal cells, especially in G1/S transition. Plant E2Fs also play an important role in cell cycle. Most studies of E2F are focused on Arabidopsis. The knowledge of E2F is still limited in rice. Here we found that rice E2F3 played an important role in plant growth regulation. The loss of E2f3 resulted in the growth arrest showing a smaller size of plant with less leaf number, less tiller numbers and shorter root length than that of wild type plants. The e2f3 plants failed to flowering and seed setting. The growth arrest was rescued by the complementation with E2F3 gene under the control of its native promoter, which demonstrates the role of E2F3 in plant growth. In addition, the loss of E2F3 conferred the elevated expression levels of genes involved in TOR pathway as revealed by quantitative real time PCR. The date suggests that E2F3 may be involved in TOR signaling to regulate plant growth and development.