Abstract
In lower land plants, genes controlling the transition from vegetative growth to sexual reproduction have not yet been identified. In the dioecious liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, the transition to sexual reproduction accompanied by the formation of sexual organs on the gametophytic thallus is initiated under long-day conditions. By particle bombardment-mediated mutagenesis, we generated a mutant of M. polymorpha that constitutively forms sexual organs. This mutant is fully fertile, showing that the mutation does not affect formation of male or female sexual organs per se. Genetic analysis reveals that this phenotype is caused by mutation of a single autosomal locus, suggesting that this mutation defines or controls a gene regulating the transition to sexual reproduction in M. polymorpha.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. Fumihiko Sato, Kyoto University, Japan, for the use of a particle delivery system for transformation, and Dr. Axel Brennicke, Universität Ulm, Germany, for critical reading of the manuscript. S.Y. was supported by a Research Fellowship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists. This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid from Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (No. 13460150), the Program for Promotion of Basic Research Activities for Innovative Bioscience (PROBRAIN), and the Asahi Glass Foundation.
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Yamaoka, S., Takenaka, M., Hanajiri, T. et al. A mutant with constitutive sexual organ development in Marchantia polymorpha L.. Sex Plant Reprod 16, 253–257 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00497-003-0195-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00497-003-0195-3