Characterization and fine mapping of a novel rice albino mutant low temperature albino 1

Albino mutants are useful genetic resource for studying chlorophyll biosynthesis and chloroplast development and cloning genes involved in these processes in plants.Here we report a novel rice mutant low temperature albino I (ltal) that showed albino leaves before 4-leaf stage when grown under temperature lower than 20℃,but developed normal green leaves under temperature higher than 24℃ or similar morphological phenotypes in dark as did the wild-type (WT).Our analysis showed that the contents of chlorophylls and chlorophyll precursors were remarkably decreased in the ltal mutant under low temperature compared to WT.Transmission electron microscope observation revealed that chloroplasts were defectively developed in the albino ltal leaves,which lacked of well-stacked granum and contained less stroma lamellae.These results suggested that the ltal mutation may delay the light-induced thylakoid assembly under low temperature.Genetic analysis indicated that the albino phenotype was controlled by a single recessive locus.Through map-based approach,we finally located the Ltal gene to a region of 40.3 kb on the short arm of chromosome 11.There are 8 predicted open reading frames (ORFs) in this region and two of them were deleted in ltal genome compared with the WT genome.The further characterization of the Ltal gene would provide a good approach to uncover the novel molecular mechanisms involved in chloroplast development under low temperature stress.