RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Characterization and Transposon Mutagenesis of the Maize (Zea mays) Pho1 Gene Family JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 040899 DO 10.1101/040899 A1 M. Nancy Salazar-Vidal A1 Edith Acosta-Segovia A1 Nidia Sanchez-Leon A1 Kevin R. Ahern A1 Thomas P. Brutnell A1 Ruairidh J. H. Sawers YR 2016 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/02/23/040899.abstract AB Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for all plants, but is one of the least mobile, and consequently least available, in the soil. Plants have evolved a series of metabolic and developmental adaptations to increase the acquisition of phosphorus and to maximize the efficiency of use within the plant. In Arabidopsis ( Arabidopsis thaliana), the PHO1 protein regulates and facilitates the distribution of phosphorus within the plant. To investigate the role of PHO1 in maize (Zea mays), we searched the B73 reference genome for homologous sequences and identified four genes that we designated ZmPho1;1, ZmPho1;2a, ZmPho1;2b and ZmPho1;3. ZmPho1;2a and ZmPho1;2b are the most similar to AtPho1, and represent candidate co-orthologs that we hypothesize to have been retained following a whole genome duplication. Tissue-and phosphate-specific differences in the accumulation of ZmPho1;2a and ZmPho1;2b transcripts suggest functional divergence. The presence of phosphate-regulated anti-sense transcripts derived from both ZmPho1;2a and ZmPho1;2b, suggest the possibility of regulatory crosstalk between paralogs. To characterize fully functional divergence between ZmPho1;2a and ZmPho1;2b, we conducted a Ds transposon mutagenesis and describe here the generation of novel insertion alleles.