Creation of a collection of morphological insertional mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana

A collection of transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants has been obtained by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. The genomes of the transgenic plants contain insertions of T-DNA of the vector plasmids pLD3 or pPCVRN4. Genes bearing T-DNA insertions were shown to constitute 12-18% of the total number of A. thaliana genes. Seventy-five lines have been chosen from the collection and subjected to genetic and molecular-genetic analysis. Of these, 5 were dominant mutants, and 70, recessive insertion mutants with various morphological defects. Identification of mutant phenotypes and genetic characterization of the transgenic lines have been performed with the use of nutrient media supplemented with exogenous hormones, which revealed five recessive lethal mutants and one dominant sterile mutant.