Dyneins motor on in plants

A recent report based on analysis of the Arabidopsis genome suggested that angiosperms do not contain the dynein microtubule motor. However, examination of the whole genome shotgun sequence for rice (Oryza sativa) has revealed that four dynein heavy chains are present in this monocot, indicating that the apparent lack of these sequences in Arabidopsis is not a general feature of angiosperm genomic organization. These observations also suggest that, in contrast to an earlier proposal, flowering plants may indeed use standard dynein-driven mechanisms to perform cellular transport activities that, in other organisms, employ the dynein motor.