Abstract
Leaf development underlies crop growth and productivity and has been a major target of crop domestication and improvement. However, most genes controlling leaf development in barley remain unknown. We identified a dwarf and liguleless (dl) mutant derived by ethylmethane sulfonate mutagenesis. The dl mutant showed dramatic changes in shoot architecture compared with wild-type (Yangnongpi 5) plants. Besides lacking ligules, the dl mutant showed much shorter plant height (28 cm) than Yangnongpi 5 (78 cm). By map-based cloning, the dl gene was localized to a 56.58-kb genomic interval on the long arm of chromosome 7. A C-to-T single-nucleotide substitution was identified at exon position 790, and is a functional mutation resulting in a proline-to-serine substitution at the 264th amino acid residue of HORVU7Hr1G106960. Consequently, HORVU7Hr1G106960 was identified as the DL gene, encoding 269 amino acids and containing the