Progress made in research on the regulatory mechanism of auxin transport within plant cells

Recently, the Crop Genome and Genetic Improvement Research Group at the Biotechnology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences made new progress in research on the regulatory mechanism of auxin transport within plant cells.

Through screening a constructed rice RNAi mutant library, researchers isolated a mutant affecting stem length during the rice grain-filling stage. Further study of the mutant revealed that the gene whose expression was downregulated in the mutant is a novel gene of unknown function, OsCOLE1 (OsCOV-LIKE1), which can affect auxin content in the basal internodes of rice. This study identified a new tonoplast auxin transporter and its regulatory protein, revealing for the first time at the molecular level a completely new mode of auxin transport regulation present on the vacuole of plant cells, further expanding existing knowledge of the auxin transport process.