[Genetic mapping of rice gene OsALB23 regulating chloroplast development]

The biogenesis of chloroplast from proplastid is the prerequisite of photosynthesis. Using electron microscope, we found that rice albino mutant Osalb23 had no thylakoid inside the chloroplast, only some empty vesicles could be observed (Fig. 2). Genetics analysis showed that albino phenotype was controlled by a single recessive locus. Using map-based cloning technique, OsALB23 has been mapped to a region of 280 kb between molecular markers R2M501 and R2M502 on chromosome 2 (Fig. 4). Homologous analysis indicated that this region contained six chloroplast protein genes.