Plant and Cell Physiology Advance Access published online on December 12, 2006
Plant and Cell Physiology, doi:10.1093/pcp/pcl052
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Isolation of 151 mutants that have developmental defects from T-DNA tagging

















1Plant Signaling Network Research Center, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Korea University, Seoul 136-701, Korea
2School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 152-742, Korea
School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Korea University, Seoul 136-701, Korea, Tel: +82-2-3290-3451, Fax: +82-2-927-9028, e-mail: jahn{at}korea.ac.kr, School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 152-742, Korea, Tel: +82-2-880-6680 Fax: +82-2-872-1993 e-mail: jongslee{at}plaza.snu.ac.kr
| Abstract |
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In order to understand the mechanisms underlying plant development, a necessary first step involves the elucidation of the functions of the genes, via the analysis of mutants that exhibit developmental defects. In this study, an activation tagging mutant library harboring 80,650 independent Arabidopsis transformants was generated in order to screen for developmental mutants. 129 mutants manifesting dominant developmental abnormalities were isolated, and their T-DNA insertion loci were mapped. The activation of one or more genes adjacent to a T-DNA insertion locus was confirmed in 8 dominant mutants. A gene adjacent to the right border was usually activated by the 35S enhancers. Interestingly, the transcriptional activation of multiple genes within a broad range was observed in one of the mutants, which raises the possibility that activation by the 35S enhancers was not limited strictly to a single gene. In order to gain a better understanding of sexual reproduction in higher plants, we isolated 22 mutants exhibiting defects in female gametophyte development, and determined their T-DNA insertion loci. We propose that this mutant population may prove useful in the further determination of the functions of genes that play important roles in plant development.
Keywords: activation tagging - Arabidopsis - developmental mutants - female gametophytic mutant - plant development
a These authors contributed equally.
These authors contributed equally to this work and are listed in alphabetical order.