Cloning and Primary Functional Analysis of PeGRF1 in Phyllostachys edulis

To explore the role of Growth regulating-factor (GRF) in the growth of bamboo shoots, one GRF gene was isolated from moso bamboo ( Phyllostachys edulis ) by RT-PCR. Bioinformatics methods were used for gene sequence analysis, and the expression pattern of the GRF gene in bamboo shoots at different development stages was analyzed by qRT-PCR. Simultaneously, ectopic expression in  Arabidopsis  was conducted to validate the gene function. The result showed that the isolated gene from moso bamboo was 1 164 bp, encoding 387 amino acids, which was named as  PeGRF1 . Protein sequence analysis showed that PeGRF1 had the complete typical domains (WRC and QLQ) of GRF family. The phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that PeGRF1 were clustered closer to the GRFs of monocotyledonous plants such as  Oryza sativa , indicating they had close relationship.  PeGRF1  expressed predominantly in young bamboo shoots. Meanwhile, the expression level of  PeGRF1  was significantly higher during rapid growth stage than that during slow growth stage of bamboo shoots, and the expression level of  PeGRF1  in the upper and middle of bamboo shoots was significantly higher than that in the base. Overexpression of  PeGRF1  could increase the plant height of transgenic  Arabidopsis . Taken together, our results demonstrated that  PeGRF1  was involved in development of bamboo shoots, which provided references for elucidating the biological functions of GRF genes in bamboo.