Glabrous Rice 1, encoding a homeodomain protein, regulates trichome development in rice.

Background Glabrous rice, which lacks trichomes on the rice epidermis, is regarded as an important germplasm resource in rice breeding. Trichomes are derived from aerial epidermal cells and used as a model to study the cell fate determination in plant. In Arabidopsis, the molecular mechanisms of trichome development have been well studied. However, little is known about the molecular basis of trichome development in rice.