De novo activation of the transposable element Tam2 of Antirrhinum majus

Summary The nivea locus of Antirrhinum majus encodes the enzyme chalcone synthase required for the synthesis of red anthocyanin pigment. The stable allele niv-44 contains an insertion in the nivea gene (Tam2) which has all the structural features of a transposable element. We have shown that this insertion can excise from the nivea locus when niv-44 is combined with another allele (niv-99) in a heterozygote. Activation of Tam2 excision is caused by a factor tightly linked to the niv-99 allele and may be due to complementation between Tam2 and a related element, Tam1. Factors which repress the excision of Tam2 and Tam1 are also described. Repression is not inherited in a simple mendelian way. Many stable mutations may be due to the insertion of transposable elements. Our data suggest that their stability may be due to the absence in the genome of activating factors and to the presence of repressors.     

The effects of acetosyringone and pH on Agrobacterium-mediated transformation vary according to plant species

Summary Expiants of five plant species (Allium cepa, Antirrhinum majus, Brassica campestris. Glycine max, and Nicotiana tabacum) were co-cultivated with three Agrobacterium tumefaciens strains under different conditions to assess the effects of acetosyringone and medium pH on strain virulence. Tumours were incited on all dicotyledonous species by strains N2/73 and A281. The presence of acetosyringone during co-cultivation generally enhanced the virulence of these strains, most markedly N2/73 on A. majus and G. max, and A281 on G. max. Strain Ach5 was virulent only on N. tabacum in the absence of acetosyringone, which, when present, extended the host range to include A. majus. There was evidence to suggest that acetosyringone may suppress virulence in some strain/plant species interactions. Virulence was affected in some cases by medium pH, but there was no general effect across plant species.Abbreviations T-DNA DNA transferred to plant cells by Agrobacterium - BAP benzyl aminopurine - MS medium Murashige and Skoog (1962) medium     

Efficient gene introduction into rice by electroporation and analysis of transgenic plants: use of electroporation buffer lacking chloride ions

Summary The pal-rec-low-o is a special repressed state of the pallida-recurrens allele, which normally mutates from the recessive to the dominant condition, giving pigmented Pal spots on corolla lobes. The pal-rec-low-o in the homozygous condition is stably colorless (except for rare mutant spots), but when crossed with the recessive tester strain, pal-tub pal-tub (also stably colorless), the mutation frequency of the particular repressed state of pal-rec (i.e., pal-rec-low-o) increases spectacularly, giving several shifts of varying sizes. The evidence suggests that the activity of the repressed state of the: pal-rec-low-o allele is dependent on the presence of an independently located Pr element, contributed by the pal-tub tester strain. In the absence of such a regulatory element, the repressed allele exhibits stable expression due to the effect of a repressor Rp element residing at or near the locus. It has also been shown that the pal-tub regulatory element, Pr, while coming through a phase of heterozygosity, could be changed either by picking up an element from the stabilized colorless original strain which, being dominant, suppresses the gene action completely; or a change may take place in pal-tub's own regulatory machinery, which otherwise has characteristics of gene regulation. However, the pal-tub regulatory element, when inactive, can be made trans-active by introducing a fresh regulator into the genome, which may segregate at meiosis.     

LeafAnalyser: a computational method for rapid and large-scale analyses of leaf shape variation

A comprehensive understanding of leaf shape is important in many investigations in plant biology. Techniques to assess variation in leaf shape are often time-consuming, labour-intensive and prohibited by complex calculation of large data sets. We have developed LeafAnalyser, software that uses image-processing techniques to greatly simplify the measurement of leaf shape variation. LeafAnalyser places a large number of evenly distributed landmarks along leaf margins and records the position of each automatically. We used LeafAnalyser to analyse the variation in 3000 leaves from 400 plants of Antirrhinum majus . We were able to summarise the major trends in leaf shape variation using a principal components (PC) analysis and assess the changes in size, width and tip-to-base asymmetry within our leaf library. We demonstrate how this information can be used to develop a model that describes the range and variation of leaf shape within standard wild-type lines, and illustrate the shape transformations that occur between leaf nodes. We also show that information from LeafAnalyser can be used to identify novel trends in shape variation, as low-variance PCs that only affect a subset of position landmarks. These results provide a high-throughput method to calculate leaf shape variation that allows a large number of leaves to be visualised in higher-dimensional phenotypic space. To illustrate the applicability of LeafAnalyser we also calculated the leaf shape variation in 300 leaves from Arabidopsis thaliana .     

金鱼草自交不亲和位点位于着丝粒的周边区

在蔷薇科、茄科和玄参科配子体自交不亲和中,编码花柱的S RNase控制花柱的自交不亲和性.在前两科植物中,自交不亲和(S)位点定位于着丝粒的附近,但在玄参科植物金鱼草(Antirrhinum)中自交不亲和位点至今未知.为了确定它在染色体上的位置和基因组结构,以基因型S2S5金鱼草根尖为材料,进行染色体的制备观察,利用地高辛标记的S2 RNase和含有其全长的BAC克隆(S2 BAC)为探针进行荧光染色体原位杂交(FISH),发现S2RNase杂交信号位于染色体的着丝粒附近,而S2 BAC的杂交信号位于每条染色体的着丝粒的周边区,呈对称的4个,表明金鱼草S位点位于着丝粒的周边区.对S2BAC预测基因的分析表明,发现一个金鱼草新的反转座子(RIS1).结果显示,金鱼草S位点位于染色体着丝粒的周边区,富含转座子和反转座子,和其他两类配子体自交不亲和的位置类似,预示它们的共同起源和具有抑制重组的功能.     

高等植物成花分子机理研究现状及展望

以拟南芥、金鱼草为例,介绍了近几年植物成花（包括成花诱导、花序分生组织的组成、花发端、花器官发生及发育）研究的一些进展,着重介绍了成花过程中基因的表达,调控与生理功能。     

HPLC analysis of the seasonal and diurnal variation of iridoids in cultivars of Antirrhinum majus

In this paper we show the seasonal and diurnal variation in the content of the four iridoids found in cultivars of Antirrhinum majus, antirrhinoside, antirrhide, 5-glucosyl-antirrhinoside and linarioside. The seasonal variation in total iridoid content showed a marked bimodal distribution with high total values (around 100 mg/g dry matter) early and late in the season and a very low content of all iridoids coinciding with the onset of flowering at the beginning of August. The relative contribution of antirrhinoside was significantly higher before flowering than after bud break. The relative decrease in antirrhinoside was counteracted by an increase of antirrhide, which was significantly higher after the onset of flowering than before. This pattern indicates a change in biosynthesis, although no explanation can be given to the phenomenon. The diurnal variation showed a variation between 20 and 60 mg/g dry weight, but there was no relation to light/darkness conditions, temperature patterns or water content. The analyses were performed by HPLC. The applied method has not previously been used in the quantification of iridoids, but was developed specifically for the analyses of cultivars of Antirrhinum majus. We have fully validated the method during its development. The limit of detection was calculated to 0.004 mg/ml and the limit of quantification was 0.01 mg/ml.     

Heterochromatic and genetic features are consistent with recombination suppression of the self-incompatibility locus in Antirrhinum

Self-incompatibility (SI) is a genetic mechanism to prevent self-fertilization that is found in many species of flowering plants. Molecular studies have demonstrated that the S-RNase and SLF/SFB genes encoded by the single polymorphic S locus, which control the pollen and pistil functions of SI in three distantly related families, the Solanaceae, Scrophulariaceae and Rosaceae, are organized in a haplotype-specific manner. Previous work suggested that the haplotype structure of the two genes is probably maintained by recombination suppression at the S locus. To examine features associated with this suppression, we first mapped the S locus of Antirrhinum hispanicum, a member of the Scrophulariaceae, to a highly heterochromatic region close to the distal end of the short arm of chromosome 8. Both leptotene chromosome and DNA fiber fluorescence in situ hybridization analyses showed an obvious haplotype specificity of the Antirrhinum S locus that is consistent with its haplotype structure. A chromosome inversion was also detected around this region between A. majus and A. hispanicum. These results revealed that DNA sequence polymorphism and a heterochromatic location are associated with the S locus. Possible roles of these features in maintenance of the haplotype specificity involved in both self and non-self recognition are discussed.     

Cloning and functional expression in E. coli of a polyphenol oxidase transcript from Coreopsis grandiflora involved in aurone formation

Polyphenol oxidases are involved in aurone biosynthesis but the gene responsible for 4-deoxyaurone formation in Asteraceae was so far unknown. Three novel full-length cDNA sequences were isolated from Coreopsis grandiflora with sizes of 1.80 kb (cgAUS1) and 1.85 kb (cgAUS2a, 2b), encoding for proteins of 68–69 kDa, respectively. cgAUS1 is preferably expressed in young petals indicating a specific role in pigment formation. The 58.9 kDa AUS1 holoproenzyme, was recombinantly expressed in E. coli and purified to homogeneity. The enzyme shows only diphenolase activity, catalyzing the conversion of chalcones to aurones and was characterized by SDS–PAGE and shot-gun type nanoUHPLC–ESI-MS/MS.