Background
The DEFECTIVE IN OUTER CELL LAYER SPECIFICATION 1 (DOCS1) gene belongs to the Leucine-Rich Repeat Receptor-Like Kinase (LRR-RLK) subfamily. It has been discovered few years ago in Oryza sativa (rice) in a screen to isolate mutants with defects in sensitivity to aluminum. The c68 (docs1-1) mutant possessed a nonsense mutation in the C-terminal part of the DOCS1 kinase domain. Findings: We have generated a new loss-of-function mutation in the DOCS1 gene (docs1-2) using the CRISPR-Cas9 technology. This new loss-of-function mutant and docs1-1 present similar phenotypes suggesting the original docs1-1 was a null allele. Besides the aluminum sensitivity phenotype, both docs1 mutants shared also several root phenotypes described previously: less root hairs and mixed identities of the outer cell layers. Moreover, our new
Conclusions
All these observations add new insights into the DOCS1 gene function in gravitropic responses at several stages of plant development.