Abstract
Main conclusion
We present a comprehensive overview on flavonoid-related phenotypes of A. thaliana tt and tds mutants, provide tools for their characterisation, increase the number of available alleles and demonstrate that tds3 is allelic to tt12 and tds5 to aha10.
Flavonoid biosynthesis is one of the best-studied secondary metabolite pathways in plants. In the model system Arabidopsis thaliana it leads to the synthesis of three phenolic compound classes: flavonol glycosides, anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins (PAs). PAs appear brown in their oxidised polymeric forms, and most A. thaliana mutants impaired in flavonoid accumulation were identified through screens for lack of this seed coat pigmentation. These mutants are referred to as transparent testa (tt) or tannin-deficient seed (tds). More than 20 mutants of these types have been published, probably representing most of the genes relevant for PA accumulation in A. thaliana. However, data about the genes involved in PA deposition or oxidation are still rather scarce. Also, for some of the known mutants it is unclear if they represent additional loci or if they are allelic to known genes. For the present study, we have performed a systematic phenotypic characterisation of almost all available tt and tds mutants and built a collection of mutants in the genetic background of the accession Columbia to minimise effects arising from ecotype variation. We have identified a novel tt6 allele from a forward genetic screen and demonstrated that tds3 is allelic to tt12 and tds5 to aha10.
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Abbreviations
- AGI:
-
Arabidopsis Genome Initiative
- Col:
-
Columbia
- DMACA:
-
p-dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde
- DPBA:
-
Diphenylboric acid 2-aminoethyl ester
- EGL3:
-
ENHANCER OF GLABRA 3
- MBW:
-
MYB-bHLH-WD40 repeat protein
- NFZ:
-
Norflurazon
- PA(s):
-
Proanthocyanidin(s)
- PAP1:
-
Production of Anthocyanin Pigment 1
- PFG:
-
Production of Flavonol Glycosides
- tds :
-
tannin-deficient seed
- TLC:
-
Thin-layer chromatography
- tt :
-
transparent testa
- Ws:
-
Wassilewskija
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Nadja Parusel for help with tt6-5 mutant analysis and Andrea Voigt for excellent technical assistance. We thank Sharon Abrahams and Anthony Ashton (CSIRO-Plant Industry, Canberra, Australia) for seeds of the tds mutant lines, NASC for providing additional seed stocks and the reviewers for their suggestions to improve the manuscript. This project was funded in part by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the context of the German plant genomics program GABI (Förderkennzeichen 0313855).
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Special topic: Anthocyanins. Guest editor: Stefan Martens.
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425_2014_2088_MOESM2_ESM.tiff
Fig. S1 Genomic structure and phenotypes of different tt3 alleles. a Gene model of tt3 alleles characterised in this study. Symbols and colours as in Fig. 4. b Left column, vanillin/HCl-treated seeds; right column, DMACA-stained mature seed as in Fig. 3 (TIFF 9696 kb)
425_2014_2088_MOESM3_ESM.tiff
Fig. S2 Genomic structure and phenotypes of different tt2 alleles. a Gene model of tt2 alleles characterised in this study. Symbols and colours as in Fig. 4. b TT2 transcript levels in tt2-5 relative to the expression in Col-0 determined by qRT-PCR. c Vanillin/HCl-treated seeds of the indicated developmental stages. d DMACA-stained mature seed as in Fig. 3. e Mature seeds as in Fig. 2 (TIFF 6376 kb)
425_2014_2088_MOESM4_ESM.tiff
Fig. S3 Genomic structure and phenotypes of different tt6 alleles. Upper panel, gene model of tt6 alleles characterised in this study. Symbols and colours as in Fig. 4. Lower panel, mature seeds as in Fig. 2 (TIFF 3306 kb)
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Appelhagen, I., Thiedig, K., Nordholt, N. et al. Update on transparent testa mutants from Arabidopsis thaliana: characterisation of new alleles from an isogenic collection. Planta 240, 955–970 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-014-2088-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-014-2088-0