Effect of the CLE14 polypeptide on homolog gene expression in rice and tomato roots.

The CLAVATA3/ESR (CLE) plant polypeptides act as peptide hormones in various physiological and developmental aspects in a diverse array of land plants. One of the family of genes, , is reported to induce root hair formation in roots. Previously, we demonstrated that the application of synthetic CLE14 polypeptide treatment induced excess root hairs, and reduced the expression level of the non-hair cell fate determinant gene, () in roots. In this study, we investigated the function of synthetic CLE14 polypeptide in rice () and tomato () roots. We measured the expression levels of the and genes, i.e., homologs of the gene, in rice and tomato seedlings, respectively. Although CLE14 polypeptide treatment induced excess root hair formation in rice roots, substantial root hair induction was not observed in tomato roots. However, the CLE14 polypeptide treatment significantly inhibited the expression of the homolog genes of rice () and tomato (). Our findings thus indicated that CLE14 can inhibit the gene expression in both rice and tomato plants, similar to the effect seen in .