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Novel eceriferum mutants in Arabidopsis thaliana

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Abstract

We conducted a novel non-visual screen for cuticular wax mutants in Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. Using gas chromatography we screened over 1,200 ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS)-mutagenized lines for alterations in the major A. thaliana wild-type stem cuticular chemicals. Five lines showed distinct differences from the wild type and were further analyzed by gas chromatography and scanning electron microscopy. The five mutants were mapped to specific chromosome locations and tested for allelism with other wax mutant loci mapping to the same region. Toward this end, the mapping of the cuticular wax (cer) mutants cer10 to cer20 was conducted to allow more efficient allelism tests with newly identified lines. From these five lines, we have identified three mutants defining novel genes that have been designated CER22, CER23, and CER24. Detailed stem and leaf chemistry has allowed us to place these novel mutants in specific steps of the cuticular wax biosynthetic pathway and to make hypotheses about the function of their gene products.

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Abbreviations

EMS:

Ethyl methane sulfonate

SEM:

Scanning electron microscopy

SSLP:

Simple sequence length polymorphism

WT :

Wild type

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from the NSF/DOE/USDA training grant (BIR-9220332) and NSF grant IBN-9419093. We thank the imaging facility of the Biotechnology Institute at The University of Arizona for electron microscopy support and the members of the Feldmann Laboratory for their comments and suggestions in the preparation of this manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. Aaron M. Rashotte

    Present address: Biology Department, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA

  2. Kenneth A. Feldmann

    Present address: Ceres, Inc., 3007 Malibu Cyn. Rd., Malibu, CA 90265, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA

    Aaron M. Rashotte, Amanda S. Ross & Kenneth A. Feldmann

  2. Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA

    Matthew A. Jenks

Authors
  1. Aaron M. Rashotte
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  2. Matthew A. Jenks
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  3. Amanda S. Ross
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  4. Kenneth A. Feldmann
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Correspondence to Aaron M. Rashotte.

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Rashotte, A.M., Jenks, M.A., Ross, A.S. et al. Novel eceriferum mutants in Arabidopsis thaliana . Planta 219, 5–13 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-003-1197-y

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