Phosphatidyl Ethanolamine Binding Protein () Regulates the Rice Heading Date Under Different Day-Length Conditions

Plant () genes often redundantly duplicate on chromosomes and functionally diverge to modulate reproductive traits. Rice harbors thirteen genes, the functions of which are still not clear, except for the and genes. Here, we identified the molecular detail of in rice reproductive stage. encoding protein contained PEBP domain and localized into the nucleus, which transcripts specifically expressed in the shoot and leaf blade with high abundance. Further GUS-staining results show the promoter activity highly expressed in the leaf and stem. knock-out concurrently exhibited early flowering phenotype under the short- and long-day conditions as compared with wild-type and over-expression plants, which independently regulates flowering without an involved / and / pathway. Further, an AT-hook protein was identified to act as upstream regulator of , as the knock-out elevated the expression by modifying Histone H3 acetylation abundance. According to the dissection of molecular functions, our study expanded the roles intellectual function of in the mediating of a rice heading date.