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Published August 1998 | public
Journal Article

EIN4 and ERS2 Are Members of the Putative Ethylene Receptor Gene Family in Arabidopsis

Abstract

The Arabidopsis ethylene receptor gene ETR1 and two related genes, ERS1 and ETR2, were identified previously. These three genes encode proteins homologous to the two-component regulators that are widely used for environment sensing in bacteria. Mutations in these genes confer ethylene insensitivity to wild-type plants. Here, we identified two Arabidopsis genes, EIN4 and ERS2, by cross-hybridizing them with ETR2. Sequence analysis showed that they are more closely related to ETR2 than they are to ETR1 or ERS1. EIN4 previously was isolated as a dominant ethylene-insensitive mutant. ERS2 also conferred dominant ethylene insensitivity when certain mutations were introduced into it. Double mutant analysis indicated that ERS2, similar to ETR1, ETR2, ERS1, and EIN4, acts upstream of CTR1. Therefore, EIN4 and ERS2, along with ETR1, ETR2, and ERS1, are members of the ethylene receptor–related gene family of Arabidopsis. RNA expression patterns of members of this gene family suggest that they might have distinct as well as redundant functions in ethylene perception.

Additional Information

© 1998 American Society of Plant Physiologists. Received March 3, 1998; accepted June 22, 1998. Published August 1, 1998. We thank Leonard Medrano for his assistance in RFLP mapping and Alfred Wang for his assistance in RNA in situ hybridization experiments. We thank Xuemei Chen, Jennifer Fletcher, Toshiro Ito, Steve Jackson, Prakash Kumar, Carolyn Ohno, Kevin Roberg, Doris Wagner, and Eva Ziegelhoffer for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by U.S. Department of Energy Grant No. 88ER13873 to E.M.M.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023