Isolation and analysis of expression mechanisms of a rice gene, EL5, whichshows structural similarity to ATL family from Arabidopsis, in response toN-acetylchitooligosaccharide elicitor

Two rice cDNAs, EL5 and RRF1, were isolated and characterized. EL5 was resp onsive to N-acetylchitooligosaccharide, a biotic elicitor active in suspens ion-cultured rice cells. The structural specificity of the elicitor require d for the expression of EL5 was consistent with other defense reactions obs erved in the experimental system, indicating that the elicitor signal to EL 5 is transmitted through a single class of receptor-mediated recognition ev ents. However, the intracellular signaling pathway to EL5 was distinct from those to other elicitor-responsive genes. Sequence analysis and alignment showed that a genomic sequence stored in rice genome databases in addition to EL5 and RRF1 belongs to the ATL family of RING-H2 finger motif proteins first isolated from Arabidopsis. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.