Description
Cytokinins (CKs) are a class of plant hormones that regulate many aspects of growth and development, including cell division, apical dominance, leaf senescence, nutrient signaling, and shoot differentiation. In the past decade, substantial progress has been made in understanding CK biosynthesis, metabolism and signal transduction. Much of this knowledge is based on research in Arabidopsis, a dicotyledonous model plant. Although cytokinin plays an important role for growth and development in the Gramineae, our knowledge of cytokinin responsive genes in monocotyledonous species is very limited compared to Arabidopsis. The search for genes whose expression is modified by CK has yielded a number of valuable tools that have been used to understand CK signaling and the complex developmental processes under control of this hormone. We tried to identify rice genes regulated by CK using an Affymetrix rice genome array.