Morphological variation of mutant  sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) induced by space flight and their genetic  background detection by SSR primers.
After sunflower seeds were exposed to space  conditions, various mutant plants were screened from the descendent plants. The  morphological characters of plants changed in flower color from golden to  yellow, light yellow, or even to yellowish green. The ligulate petals of the  unisexual floret broadened, or became thin, while the short tubular petals of  bisexual floret elongated to some extent, or even turned into semi-ligulate  petals or ligulate petals, making the phenotype of the whole inflorescence like  a chrysanthemum. The shape and thickness of leaves varied in some of  these plants. Absolute sterile plants in mutant plants were found to possess  neither normal bisexual florets nor unisexual florets, but the "pseudo-floret"  only consisted of pieces of shield-like bracts on protuberant floral disc.  Thirty-five pairs of simple sequence of repeat primers were used to detect the  genetic variation of the plants, and the results showed that only a variation  was tested in the mutant plants from 4 primers. The different PCR products  obtained were extracted for sequencing and alignment analysis, and the aligned  results showed that the DNA sequence changed by deletion, insertion and  replacement that occurred at some sites. The results proved the high mutagenic  efficacy of space flight, and ways of DNA transformation due to space  conditions.
Institute of Rare Animals and Plants, China West Normal University, Nanchong, Sichuan, China. yangjunlz@tom.com
J
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Yang
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Shen
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Zhang
G D
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Chen
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Liu
X B
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Ma
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Chen
Z S
ZS
Peng
D017931:DNA Primers / Q000378:metabolism*; D004587:Electrophoresis, Agar Gel; D035264:Flowers / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000235:genetics; D006368:Helianthus / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000235:genetics*; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation / Q000235:genetics; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000235:genetics; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D019655:Quantitative Trait, Heritable; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013026:Space Flight
D017931:DNA Primers