Insertion and excision of a transposable element governs the red floral phenotype in commercial petunias.
Commercial cultivars of Petunia hybrida with red flowers (red petunias) accumulate cyanidin 3-glucoside as a main floral anthocyanin pigment. The conversion of anthocyanidin 3-glucosides to anthocyanidin 3-rutinosides is catalyzed by a UDP-rhamnose: anthocyanidin 3-glucoside-rhamnosyltransferase (RT). In red petunias, the RT gene is known to be disrupted by the insertion of a transposable element (dTph3). We have cloned the dTph3-like element (called dTph3-C) from a red petunia. Unlike dTph3, dTph3-C harbored a perfect terminal inverted repeat. In addition, an excision product (so-called "footprint") of dTph3/dTph3-C was found in another red petunia. The RT transcripts harboring this footprint could not produce the RT enzyme because a stop codon was created in the footprint sequence. The genotypes of the 42 commercial petunias which exhibit different anthocyanin pigmentation were determined by multiplex PCR. In this technique, the amplified products from normal, dTph3/dTph3-C-inserted, and footprint-retaining RT genes can be separated from one another. Our results indicate that the red-floral phenotype of commercial petunias is governed by insertion and excision events of a transposable element in the coding region of the RT gene.
Nakajima
T
T
Graduate School of Science and Technology, Chiba University, Chiba 263-8522, Japan.
Matsubara
K
K
Kodama
H
H
Kokubun
H
H
Watanabe
H
H
Ando
T
T
D000872:Anthocyanins / Q000378:metabolism; D015152:Blotting, Northern; D018983:DNA Footprinting; D017931:DNA Primers; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements / Q000235:genetics*; D004798:Enzymes / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D035264:Flowers / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D005838:Genotype; D032306:Petunia / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D010858:Pigmentation / Q000502:physiology*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods
D000872:Anthocyanins; D017931:DNA Primers; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004798:Enzymes
Plant J. 1994 Jan;5(1):69-80
8130799
Phytochemistry. 2004 Aug;65(15):2219-27
15587706
Mol Gen Genet. 1988 Jan;211(1):27-34
2830466
Plant J. 1994 Jan;5(1):81-92
8130800
Plant Physiol. 2001 Jun;126(2):485-93
11402179
Nat Rev Genet. 2002 May;3(5):329-41
11988759
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1997 Jul 22;94(15):7704-11
9223252
Eur J Biochem. 1991 Apr 23;197(2):495-503
1902790
Phytochemistry. 2000 Jun;54(5):495-501
10939353
Plant Cell. 1999 Jul;11(7):1319-36
10402432