Abstract:

The pseudo-response regulatory protein TOC1, one of the five members of the pseudo-response regulator (PRR) family proteins, as the core component of the central oscillator of clock, together with the MYB-like transcription factors LHY and CCA1, constitute the central negative regulatory feedback loop of the central oscillator of clock, which plays an important role in the circadian clock system. The ZmPRR1-2 gene is a homologous gene of TOC1 in Arabidopsis. In order to deeply explore the biological function of ZmPRR1-2, the proteins interacting with ZmPRR1-2 was screened from the yeast cDNA library of a tropical maize inbred line induced by long-day photoperiod treatment by yeast two-hybrid technique. The results showed that the bait vector PGBKT7-ZmPRR1-2 was not toxic to yeast strain and had no self-activation effect on the reporter gene. A total of 12 proteins containing the full length interacting with ZmPRR1-2 were identified. These candidate interacting proteins were involved in many pathways, such as response to oxidative stress, response to oxidative stress, response to aluminum ion, photosynthesis, electron transport chain, light harvesting, auxin-activated signaling pathway, regulation of DNA-templated transcription, tryptophan biosynthetic process, translation, immune response, positive regulation of apoptotic signaling pathway and proteolysis involved in protein catabolic process. It is speculated that ZmPRR1-2 protein may participate in multiple signal transduction and metabolic pathways by interacting with the identified interaction proteins. The results might improve our understanding of the further study of the molecular function and regulatory mechanism of ZmPRR1-2.

Key words: maize, circadian, ZmPRR1-2, yeast two-hybrid system, interacting protein