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Differential excision patterns of the En-transposable element at the A2 locus in maize relate to the insertion site

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Abstract

Defined mutant alleles with resident transposons display characteristic patterns of germinal and somatic reversion, and heritable changes in the timing and frequency of reversions, which have been termed “change of state” by McClintock, constantly arise. Several mechanisms were proposed to account for these changes. They may be ascribed to the structure and composition of the elements themselves (composition hypothesis) or to their location (position hypothesis). In the current study, insertion positions were determined for three autonomous En-controlled mutable alleles of the A2 locus in maize that show different somatic reversion patterns. A relationship was observed between En insertion positions in the single coding region of the intronless A2 gene and anthocyanin variegation patterns in the aleurone. An insertion in the 5′ region of the coding sequence produced a very late somatic variegation pattern, whereas two early variegation patterns were caused by En insertions in the 3′ region of the coding sequence.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Karen Price, Dr. Xiang-Gan Li, Jian-Bo Zhang, Pei-Fen Zhang, Yong-Li Xiao, Dr. Lyuda Sidorenko, Chen-Wen Zhu, Joann Dieter, and Dr. Brian Scheffler for their technical help and discussions. The authors are grateful to Dr. Tom Peterson for use of his laboratory in the early stages of this study. Special thanks are given to Dr. Alfons Gierl for kindly providing the A2 probe. Journal paper# J-17333 of Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA, Project 3176.

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Author notes

  1. Ru-Ying Chang

    Present address: Department of Biochemistry, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, 40202, USA

  2. Surinder Chopra

    Present address: Department of Agronomy, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA,  , 16802, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011-1010, USA

    Ru-Ying Chang, Surinder Chopra & Peter A. Peterson

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  1. Ru-Ying Chang
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  2. Surinder Chopra
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  3. Peter A. Peterson
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Correspondence to Peter A. Peterson.

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Communicated by M.-A. Grandbastien

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Chang, RY., Chopra, S. & Peterson, P.A. Differential excision patterns of the En-transposable element at the A2 locus in maize relate to the insertion site. Mol Genet Genomics 274, 189–195 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-005-0009-4

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