Abstract
The flower is a hallmark feature that has contributed to the evolutionary success of land plants. Diverse mutagenic agents have been employed as a tool to genetically perturb flower development and identify genes involved in floral patterning and morphogenesis. Since the initial studies to identify genes governing processes such as floral organ specification, mutagenesis in sensitized backgrounds has been used to isolate enhancers and suppressors to further probe the molecular basis of floral development. Here, we first describe two commonly employed methods for mutagenesis (using ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) or T-DNAs as mutagens), and then describe three methods for identifying a mutation that leads to phenotypic alterations—traditional map-based cloning, TAIL-PCR, and deep sequencing in the plant model Arabidopsis thaliana.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Laibach F (1943) Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh als objekt fur genetische und entwicklungsphysiologische Untersuchungen. Bot Archiv 44:439–455
Leutwiler LS, Hough-Evans BR, Meyerowitz EM (1984) The DNA of Arabidopsis thaliana. Mol Gen Genet 194:15–23
Meyerowitz EM (1989) Arabidopsis, a useful weed. Cell 56(2):263–269
Meyerowitz EM, Pruitt RE (1985) Arabidopsis thaliana and plant molecular genetics. Science 229(4719):1214–1218
Pruitt RE, Meyerowitz EM (1986) Charac-terization of the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana. J Mol Biol 187(2):169–183
Bowman JL, Meyerowitz EM (1991) Genetic control of pattern formation during flower development in Arabidopsis. Symp Soc Exp Biol 45:89–115
Bowman JL, Smyth DR, Meyerowitz EM (1989) Genes directing flower development in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell 1(1):37–52
Coen ES, Meyerowitz EM (1991) The war of the whorls: genetic interactions controlling flower development. Nature 353(6339):31–37
Meyerowitz EM et al (1991) A genetic and molecular model for flower development in Arabidopsis thaliana. Dev Suppl 1:157–167
Drews GN, Weigel D, Meyerowitz EM (1991) Floral patterning. Curr Opin Genet Dev 1(2):174–178
Jack T, Brockman LL, Meyerowitz EM (1992) The homeotic gene APETALA3 of Arabidopsis thaliana encodes a MADS box and is expressed in petals and stamens. Cell 68(4):683–697
Smyth DR, Bowman JL, Meyerowitz EM (1990) Early flower development in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell 2(8):755–767
Weigel D et al (1992) LEAFY controls floral meristem identity in Arabidopsis. Cell 69(5):843–859
Yanofsky MF et al (1990) The protein encoded by the Arabidopsis homeotic gene agamous resembles transcription factors. Nature 346(6279):35–39
Bowman JL, Smyth DR (1999) CRABS CLAW, a gene that regulates carpel and nectary development in Arabidopsis, encodes a novel protein with zinc finger and helix-loop-helix domains. Development 126(11):2387–2396
Sieburth LE, Running MP, Meyerowitz EM (1995) Genetic separation of third and fourth whorl functions of AGAMOUS. Plant Cell 7(8):1249–1258
Chen X, Meyerowitz EM (1999) HUA1 and HUA2 are two members of the floral homeotic AGAMOUS pathway. Mol Cell 3(3):349–360
Cheng Y et al (2003) Two RNA binding proteins, HEN4 and HUA1, act in the processing of AGAMOUS pre-mRNA in Arabidopsis thaliana. Dev Cell 4(1):53–66
Li J, Jia D, Chen X (2001) HUA1, a regulator of stamen and carpel identities in Arabidopsis, codes for a nuclear RNA binding protein. Plant Cell 13(10):2269–2281
Ji L et al (2011) ARGONAUTE10 and ARGONAUTE1 regulate the termination of floral stem cells through two microRNAs in Arabidopsis. PLoS Genet 7(3):e1001358
Chen X (2004) A microRNA as a translational repressor of APETALA2 in Arabidopsis flower development. Science 303(5666):2022–2025
Liu X et al (2011) AGAMOUS terminates floral stem cell maintenance in Arabidopsis by directly repressing WUSCHEL through recruitment of Polycomb Group proteins. Plant Cell 23(10):3654–3670
Siegfried KR et al (1999) Members of the YABBY gene family specify abaxial cell fate in Arabidopsis. Development 126(18):4117–4128
Sawa S et al (1999) FILAMENTOUS FLOWER, a meristem and organ identity gene of Arabidopsis, encodes a protein with a zinc finger and HMG-related domains. Genes Dev 13(9):1079–1088
Eshed Y, Baum SF, Bowman JL (1999) Distinct mechanisms promote polarity establishment in carpels of Arabidopsis. Cell 99(2):199–209
Telfer A, Poethig RS (1998) HASTY: a gene that regulates the timing of shoot maturation in Arabidopsis thaliana. Development 125(10):1889–1898
Wagner D, Meyerowitz EM (2002) SPLAYED, a novel SWI/SNF ATPase homolog, controls reproductive development in Arabidopsis. Curr Biol 12(2):85–94
Eshed Y et al (2001) Establishment of polarity in lateral organs of plants. Curr Biol 11(16):1251–1260
Muller R, Bleckmann A, Simon R (2008) The receptor kinase CORYNE of Arabidopsis transmits the stem cell-limiting signal CLAVATA3 independently of CLAVATA1. Plant Cell 20(4):934–946
Brand U et al (2000) Dependence of stem cell fate in Arabidopsis on a feedback loop regulated by CLV3 activity. Science 289(5479):617–619
Nimchuk ZL, Tarr PT, Meyerowitz EM (2011) An evolutionarily conserved pseudokinase mediates stem cell production in plants. Plant Cell 23(3):851–854
Nag A, Yang Y, Jack T (2007) DORNRO-SCHEN-LIKE, an AP2 gene, is necessary for stamen emergence in Arabidopsis. Plant Mol Biol 65(3):219–232
Levin JZ et al (1998) A genetic screen for modifiers of UFO meristem activity identifies three novel FUSED FLORAL ORGANS genes required for early flower development in Arabidopsis. Genetics 149(2):579–595
Page DR, Grossniklaus U (2002) The art and design of genetic screens: Arabidopsis thaliana. Nat Rev Genet 3(2):124–136
Papdi C et al (2010) Genetic screens to identify plant stress genes. Methods Mol Biol 639:121–139
Kim Y, Schumaker KS, Zhu JK (2006) EMS mutagenesis of Arabidopsis. Methods Mol Biol 323:101–103
Krieg DR (1963) Ethyl methanesulfonate-induced reversion of bacteriophage T4rII mutants. Genetics 48:561–580
Greene EA et al (2003) Spectrum of chemically induced mutations from a large-scale reverse-genetic screen in Arabidopsis. Genetics 164(2):731–740
McCallum CM et al (2000) Targeted screening for induced mutations. Nat Biotechnol 18(4):455–457
Jander G et al (2003) Ethylmethanesulfonate saturation mutagenesis in Arabidopsis to determine frequency of herbicide resistance. Plant Physiol 131(1):139–146
Clough SJ, Bent AF (1998) Floral dip: a simplified method for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant J 16(6):735–743
Tzfira T et al (2004) Agrobacterium T-DNA integration: molecules and models. Trends Genet 20(8):375–383
Szabados L et al (2002) Distribution of 1000 sequenced T-DNA tags in the Arabidopsis genome. Plant J 32(2):233–242
Wang Y (2008) How effective is T-DNA insertional mutagenesis in Arabidopsis? J Biochem Tech 1(1):11–20
Li Y et al (2006) Analysis of T-DNA insertion site distribution patterns in Arabidopsis thaliana reveals special features of genes without insertions. Genomics 87(5):645–652
Weigel D et al (2000) Activation tagging in Arabidopsis. Plant Physiol 122(4):1003–1013
Radhamony RN, Prasad AM, Srinivasan R (2005) T-DNA insertional mutagenesis in Arabidopsis: a tool for functional genomics. Electr J Biotech 8(1). doi: 10.2225/vol8-issue1-fulltext-4
Lukowitz W, Gillmor CS, Scheible WR (2000) Positional cloning in Arabidopsis. Why it feels good to have a genome initiative working for you. Plant Physiol 123(3):795–805
Liu YG, Whittier RF (1995) Thermal asymmetric interlaced PCR: automatable amplification and sequencing of insert end fragments from P1 and YAC clones for chromosome walking. Genomics 25(3):674–681
Liu YG, Chen Y (2007) High-efficiency thermal asymmetric interlaced PCR for amplification of unknown flanking sequences. Biotechniques 43(5):649–654
Austin RS et al (2011) Next-generation mapping of Arabidopsis genes. Plant J 67(4):715–725
Schneeberger K et al (2009) SHOREmap: simultaneous mapping and mutation identification by deep sequencing. Nat Methods 6(8):550–551
Zhu Y et al (2012) Gene discovery using mutagen-induced polymorphisms and deep sequencing: application to plant disease resistance. Genetics 192(1):139–146
Sarin S et al (2008) Caenorhabditis elegans mutant allele identification by whole-genome sequencing. Nat Methods 5(10):865–867
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media, New York
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Dinh, T.T., Luscher, E., Li, S., Liu, X., Won, S.Y., Chen, X. (2014). Genetic Screens for Floral Mutants in Arabidopsis thaliana: Enhancers and Suppressors. In: Riechmann, J., Wellmer, F. (eds) Flower Development. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1110. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9408-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9408-9_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-9407-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-9408-9
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols