Expansins are conserved in conifers and expressed in hypocotyls in response to exogenous auxin

Differential display reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction was used to detect the induction of gene expression during adventitious root formation in loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) after treatment with the exogenous auxin indole-3-butyric acid. A BLAST search of the GenBank database using one of the clones obtained revealed very strong similarity to the alpha-expansin gene family in angiosperms. A near-full-length loblolly pine alpha-expansin sequence was obtained using 5'- and 3'-rapid amplification of cDNA end cloning, and the deduced amino acid sequence was highly conserved relative to those of angiosperm expansins. Northern analysis indicates that alpha-expansin mRNA expression increases 50- to 100-fold in the base of hypocotyl stem cuttings from loblolly pine seedlings in response to indole-3-butyric acid, with peak expression occurring 24 to 48 h after induction.