Figure 1.

Rice MEL1 Had a Typical AGO Structure.

(A) Schematic diagram of the structure of the rice MEL1 protein, which was composed of 1058 amino acids. Arrowheads indicate the site of Tos17 insertion in the respective allelic lines.

(B) Alignment of the PIWI domains of Os MEL1 (accession number AB297928), Os PNH (ABO81950), At PNH (AAD40098), At AGO1 (AAC18440), At AGO4 (NP_565633), Ce CSR1 (NP_001040938), and Dm PIWI (NP_476875). Amino acids conserved in more than three proteins are highlighted with black boxes. The D, D, and H residues, which are key metal-coordinating residues involved in RNase H activity (Yigit et al., 2006), are marked with asterisks beneath the sequences.