Amplification, analysis and chromosome mapping of novel homeobox-containing and homeobox-flanking sequences in rice

Homeobox genes, widely distributed among animal and plant kingdoms, play an important role in developmental process. Several homeobox conserved fragme nts were amplified by PCR and the flanking regions were also obtained by an LM-PCR procedure. Sequencing and Southern analysis showed that they belong to a homeobox gene family of rice. Six homeobox-containing fragments were mapped on the molecular linkage map of rice. They were looted on chromosome s 3, 4 and 7 respectively. It is noteworthy that there are 4 homeobox fragm ents located on rice chromosome 3 and the result is also consistent with th e comparative genomics between rice and maize.