TY - JOUR T1 - A group of nuclear factor Y transcription factors are likely sub-functionalized in the endosperm development of monocot JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/149047 SP - 149047 AU - E Zhiguo AU - Li Tingting AU - Zhang Huaya AU - Liu Zehou AU - Deng Hui AU - Sharma Sandeep AU - Wei Xuefeng AU - Wang Lei AU - Niu Baixiao AU - Chen Chen Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/19/149047.abstract N2 - Nuclear factor Y (NF-Y) is a heterotrimeric transcription factor that consists of three subunits, NF-YA, NF-YB, and NF-YC. Although NF-Ys play multiple roles in plant development, their functions during endosperm development are not well understood. In this study, we identified eight NF-Y encoding genes, including OsNF-YA8, OsNF-YB1,9, and OsNF-YC8,9,10,11,12, which predominantly express in the rice endosperm. Interestingly, the closest homologs of these OsNF-Ys are present only in the monocot species. All the genes are preferentially expressed in the endosperm, suggesting their roles in the regulation of endosperm development. A systemic analysis of the interactions between rice endosperm-preferential NF-Ys in yeast revealed that NF-YBs and NF-YCs could interact with each other. OsNF-YA8 is a recently evolved NF-YA in rice. Generally, NF-YA does not interact with NF-YB monomers in plants; however, in the present study, we found that OsNY-YA8 interacts with OsNF-YB9. Our results also indicated that the endosperm-preferential OsNF-YBs and OsNF-YCs could interact with some ethylene response factors (ERFs) of rice. Unlike the OsNF-YC8,9,10, the members of OsNF-YB1, 9 or OsNF-YC 11 and 12 showed lack of transcriptional activation when present alone. However, they displayed functional activity while in dimer form. In addition, OsNF-YB1 knockout lines showed significant changes in the seed morphology, further confirms its role in endosperm development. Our findings have provided strong evidences that the group of phylogenetically conserved NF-Ys are differentiated in monocots to regulate the endosperm development. ER -