Figure 2. Overexpression of bHLH142 causes anther indehiscence in rice.

(a) bHLH142^OEplant (L42) showing growth compared to WT. (b) Post-anthesis panicles of WT and bHLH142^OE transgenics (L40 and L42) showing dehisced anthers in WT and indehisced anther in transgenic plants. (c) SEM images of WT and transgenic anthers showing that apical and basal part of WT anther is ruptured while that of transgenics is intact. (d) qRT-PCR expression analysis showing high accumulation of bHLH142 transcripts in transgenic anthers at tetrad and MP stages. Error bars indicate standard deviation (SD). The data are presented as the mean ± SD (n = 3). Asterisks indicate significant difference with respect to WT (‘*’ indicates t-test p-value ≤ 0.05 while ‘***’ indicates p-value ≤ 0.001). (e) Immunoblot showing higher accumulation of bHLH142 polypeptide in transgenic plants in MP anther. WT, Wild Type.